Description

Summary: 1 chalk thatch weight with hole for suspension, from the early Iron Age settlement at All Cannings Cross Farm, All Cannings Cross, Wiltshire. Excavated by Mr B H Cunnington and Mrs M E Cunnington, 1911-22.

Research results

A perforated chalk weight, probably a loomweight or thatch weight, excavated from the Iron Age site of All Cannings Cross, by M E Cunnington and B H Cunnington, between 1911 and 1922.

Ruth Shaffrey (2017) has examined these weights as part of a wider discussion of stone loom weights in Prehistoric Britain. She notes that whilst there is evidence for the use of warp-weighted looms on the continent, there is no comparable evidence in Britain until the post-Roman period, and that the identification of all prehistoric loom weights is based on an assumption. She argues that the size and shape of many loom weights would not be suitable for use with a warp-weighted loom and this identification requires that Iron Age Britain utilised a novel and regional form of the loom, such as one by which a single pole is weighed down by fewer, larger weights. Althernatively, she argues that we should accept that the variety in size and form visible implies a similar variety in uses.