The textile article is fascinating; thank you for the link! Relevant to that, have you read Women's Work by Elizabeth Wayland Barber? Though probably rather dated now (published in 1996), it's a history of textiles I read many years ago that was my first encounter with a number of historical bits of textile trivia such as, for example, that what we now think of as what fabric is typically like -- and capable of -- is based on machine-woven fabric, while handmade fabric was a great deal more versatile, diverse, and in some cases much finer than anything we have in the modern world. (Which is why that article made me think of it.) The other thing that really sticks with me from the book is the author finding evidence of ceremonial garments in Eastern Europe that appear to be direct descendants of some of the earliest woven garments known, from more than ten thousand years earlier.