Fortunately, I have a much better sense of how to proceed in researching something than I did when I started my Viking journey.  I am currently in the process, as I mentioned before, of re-reading everything I have on Celtic textiles, clothing and culture, and slowly pulling in some new material at the same time.  I am doing much better this time at maintaining a bibliography as I go (this will be linked here eventually).  

I am also building out a list of extant textiles for the time and location at which I am looking.  At this moment I am starting with La Tène A and B, so am collecting the data on the entire La Tène period, as well as Hallstatt D.  I actually had to print myself a chart and map to keep new my workstation so that I can remind myself of what fits where (as some people label a find simply with a date and others list it by century).

Yes, that is still a very broad range of time that I am looking at, but I do so for two reasons.  The first is to see how things changed over time and what trends developed.  The second is because there is a lot of data that is simply missing, and you really have to fill in the blanks, and I like to have an idea of what direction that will take me.

As I also mentioned earlier, I am specifically looking at Central Europe, with a focus on southern Germany and Western Austria.  My initial thoughts were to pull things from those specific locations as well as Switzerland and France, but after doing some reading yesterday I see that some authors lump Germany and Austria in with the material for the Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Yugoslavia for the La Tène period (which France and Germany are more similar in the prior Hallstatt period), so this is something I now intend to look at further.

I think I have added over a dozen new physical books to my library this year, with 4 more on the way.  Add to that dozens (hundreds?) of PDFs and I certainly have enough material to keep me happy for awhile.  I also have the ILL librarian sourcing several key documents for me that I simply could not find to purchase at all.

My first sweep for data includes gathering information on wool types (which I have now done), dye studies (I definitely have enough to go on), and textile catalogs so that I can form one big document where I can sort and view things as needed.  I already have a list of questions that I want to try to answer before I start a weaving project this spring.

In addition to all of this, I am gathering images and icons of clothed human figures in period so that can start experimenting with garb types.

Oh, and also, have you looked at the positively incredible array of jewelry these people possessed?  I am looking at my specific time frame and narrowing town the bling that I hope to try to make soon as well.  And beads.  So many amazing beads (most of which are the same types of beads from Carthage that I am working on for a friend, so I am delighted to not have to print more images to tape to the studio walls).

Looking forward to start compiling real thoughts soon!

When I first joined the SCA, my interest was all things Irish, or, more broadly, if somewhat inaccurately, all things Celtic.  I loved the legends of lore of Dark Ages Ireland, but my modern vanity warred with that interest (and won) in favor of things far later in time (and far more flattering).  My household all still did "Early Celt" for events like Pennsic, but looking back, I somewhat cringe at my ideas of what that entailed.

Even while studying Viking Age textiles and dress, I was reading anything I came across about the early Celts, and now it is finally time to start assembling my thoughts on my reading, and put to test some ideas I have had.  This separate blog will cover that material, including textiles, beads and my attempts to build kits for the La Téne period in Central Europe.

For the moment I am, out of necessity, trying to center my research on the early La Téne period (LT A and LT B for the most part), and regionally I am looking at southern Germany (particularly Baden-Wurrtemberg and Bavaria) and western Austria, though I am tangentially also looking at Switzerland and eastern France.  I have materials that reach further out in both time and place, but in an effort to reign in the research and start producing things, I am trying to contain things a bit in terms of time and place.  Maybe.  Hopefully.

To start, I have tracked down a number of catalogs of textiles from these areas and am compiling them into one spread sheet.  I am reading everything I can on the topic and looking into not only the beads found in the regions, but in glass working centres there as well.  I hope by late spring to have my loom warped up and in the meantime, I will start crafting test-garments from commercial textiles.

I do not think I can adequately express how energized and excited I am by this project and process. Viking Age research was difficult.  I had to wade through a mass of difficult-to-source materials and work with little in the way of evidence to try to make intelligent reconstructions.  Early Early Period (as I call it) is even more difficult.  At least with Viking Age work, there were other reenactors who had assembled nice bibliographies from which I could bounce into piles of amazing papers.  There is a wealth of information on my new focus area, but not in the same easy-to-get-started format.  I am already hitting stumbling blocks in tracking down books I am sure I need (there are a few that have no copies in US libraries at all), and I think my mailman is sick already of delivering heavy packages from Germany to my house.  And even once I get all of my sources lined up, there is far less in the way of extant garments to make sense of complete costume.

It is absolutely exhilarating. 
 
I feel very refreshed (something I much need these days) and hope to make some other major changes in my SCA life going forward as well.