Basket weaving
osier), oak, wisteria, forsythia, vines, stems, fur, hide, grasses, thread, and fine wooden splints.
Techniques used in basket weaving have been indistinguishable from rope-making and evidenced throughout the world since the beginning of recorded hominin presence in South Africa with the repeat discovery of perforated batons.
The earliest reliable evidence for basket weaving technology in the Middle East comes from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic phases of Tell Sabi Abyad II[2] and Çatalhöyük.
The extremely well-preserved Early Neolithic ritual cave site of Nahal Hemar yielded thousands of intact perishable artefacts, including basketry containers, fabrics, and various types of cordage.
[4] Additional Neolithic basketry impressions have been uncovered at Tell es-Sultan (Jericho),[5] Netiv HaGdud,[4] Beidha,[6] Shir,[7] Tell Sabi Abyad III,[8] Domuztepe,[9] Umm Dabaghiyah,[10] Tell Maghzaliyah,[9] Tepe Sarab,[11] Jarmo,[12] and Ali Kosh.
[citation needed] During the World Wars some pannier baskets were used for dropping supplies of ammunition and food to the troops.
Also, while traditional materials like oak, hickory, and willow might be hard to come by, reed is plentiful and can be cut into any size or shape that might be needed for a pattern.
[citation needed] Many types of plants can be used to create baskets: dog rose, honeysuckle, blackberry briars once the thorns have been scraped off and many other creepers.
Some elements that may be used for decoration include maidenhair fern stems, horsetail root, red cherry bark and a variety of grasses.
Although many vines are not uniform in shape and size, they can be manipulated and prepared in a way that makes them easily used in traditional and contemporary basketry.
Since palms are found in the south, basket weaving with this material has a long tradition in Tamil Nadu and surrounding states.
[citation needed] In Japan, bamboo weaving is registered as a traditional Japanese craft (工芸, kōgei) with a range of fine and decorative arts.
[citation needed] Southeast Asia has thousands of sophisticated forms of indigenous basketry produce, many of which use ethnic-endemic techniques.
[citation needed] Basketry has been traditionally practised by the women of many Aboriginal Australian peoples across the continent for centuries.
[24][25][26] The Ngarrindjeri women of southern South Australia have a tradition of coiled basketry, using the sedge grasses growing near the lakes and mouth of the Murray River.
In Mi'kma'ki (composed of now Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and eastern Quebec, Canada), the Mi’kmaq used plants and animals for their fibre and dye sources in their basketry.
Two archaeological sites revealed traditional materials of moose-tendon fibres, cattail plant (Typha latifolia), true rush (Scirpus lacustris), sweetgrass (Hierochloe odorata), American beach grass (Amophilia brevingulata), birch tree (Betula papyrifera), white cedar (Thuja occidentalis), basswood (Tilia Americana), black ash (Fraxinus nigra), white ash (Fraxinus americana), poplar (Populus tremuloides), and red maple (Acer rubrum).
Southeastern peoples, such as the Atakapa, Cherokee, Choctaw, and Chitimacha, traditionally use split river cane for basketry.
In northwestern Mexico, the Seri people continue to "sew" baskets using splints of the limberbush plant, Jatropha cuneata.
[38][39] Starting in the late 1960s, Zulu basketry was a dying art form due to the introduction of tin and plastic water containers.
[39] Kjell Lofroth, a Swedish minister living in South Africa, noticed a decline in the local crafts, and after a drought in the KwaZulu-Natal province and he formed the Vukani Arts Association (English: wake up and get going) to financially support single women and their families.
[41] These are often brightly colored baskets and made with telephone wire (sometimes from a recycled source), which is a substitute for native grasses.
