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A comment on What if we called it the Flax Age instead of the Iron Age?. Parent comment

Re:What if we called it the Flax Age instead of the Iron Age? by bluGill on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @02:02PM (#21587224)
I don't think so. Retting isn't obvious, but it isn't hard to imagine that someone encountered some material that wasn't preserved and it rotted in the right way. This could be accidentally finding it, or storing some for latter processing and then dieing - only latter was the cache discovered and used.
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Re:What if we called it the Flax Age instead of the Iron Age? by ncmncm on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @02:10PM (#21587310)
It is one thing for somebody to notice and use such fibers, and completely another for the practice to become part of the material culture.

Archaeology is concerned with the latter. How a practice entered the material culture is an interesting detail.

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