TIGHAR

Amelia Earhart Search Forum => Artifact Analysis => Topic started by: Brad Beeching on September 28, 2011, 09:33:04 AM

Title: Knotted Cloth
Post by: Brad Beeching on September 28, 2011, 09:33:04 AM
In the documentary "Finding Amelia" there is reference to a piece of cloth with a knot tied in the middle that was found at the 7 site. I cannot find any reference to it any where here. What was the determination (if any) as to what, when, where it may have came from? Has the knot ever been untied? I was thinking that inside the knot might be a perfect place to find contact DNA, or even something tangable, like hair or a blood stain. If Mr. Noonan WAS seriously injured, maybe the cloth had been used as a tourniquet to bind a wound, or splint.
Title: Re: Knotted Cloth
Post by: Don Dollinger on September 28, 2011, 11:14:23 AM
Would cloth survive for 70 plus years in that environment?

LTM,

Don
Title: Re: Knotted Cloth
Post by: Brad Beeching on September 29, 2011, 08:09:45 AM
I guess it could, given that cloth was collected stuck to other artifacts. Can anyone point me at the references for the knotted cloth?
Title: Re: Knotted Cloth
Post by: Brad Beeching on October 27, 2011, 02:31:54 PM
In the documentary "Finding Amelia" there is reference to a piece of cloth with a knot tied in the middle that was found at the 7 site. I cannot find any reference to it any where here. What was the determination (if any) as to what, when, where it may have came from? Has the knot ever been untied? I was thinking that inside the knot might be a perfect place to find contact DNA, or even something tangable, like hair or a blood stain. If Mr. Noonan WAS seriously injured, maybe the cloth had been used as a tourniquet to bind a wound, or splint.

Can anyone point me at references to this cloth, or answer the question?
Title: Re: Knotted Cloth
Post by: Chris Johnson on October 28, 2011, 02:45:11 AM
In the documentary "Finding Amelia" there is reference to a piece of cloth with a knot tied in the middle that was found at the 7 site. I cannot find any reference to it any where here. What was the determination (if any) as to what, when, where it may have came from? Has the knot ever been untied? I was thinking that inside the knot might be a perfect place to find contact DNA, or even something tangable, like hair or a blood stain. If Mr. Noonan WAS seriously injured, maybe the cloth had been used as a tourniquet to bind a wound, or splint.

Can anyone point me at references to this cloth, or answer the question?

Looking at the appendices for TIGHAR's recent report to PIPA  (http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Expeditions/NikuVI/PIPAreport/PIPAAppendices/PIPAAppendixC.html)I see no mention of the cloth but there are 2 leather items 2-9-S-2 and 2-9-S-8
Title: Re: Knotted Cloth
Post by: Ric Gillespie on October 30, 2011, 08:49:34 PM
We had the cloth tested by Dr. Kathryn Jakes, Professor of Textile and Fiber Science,
College of Education and Human Ecology at Ohio State University.  She concluded:
"The material submitted for examination is a plain woven fabric made of polyester filaments. It is impossible for this material to have come from the castaway in question. It is likely to have been introduced to the island in the 1950s or later."
Title: Re: Knotted Cloth
Post by: Brad Beeching on October 30, 2011, 09:23:39 PM
Thanks for clearing that up for me Ric, I appreciate the response...

Gums
Title: Re: Knotted Cloth
Post by: Chris Johnson on October 31, 2011, 05:26:09 AM
We had the cloth tested by Dr. Kathryn Jakes, Professor of Textile and Fiber Science,
College of Education and Human Ecology at Ohio State University.  She concluded:
"The material submitted for examination is a plain woven fabric made of polyester filaments. It is impossible for this material to have come from the castaway in question. It is likely to have been introduced to the island in the 1950s or later."

Interesting! Another recent deposit on the 7 site, another visitor.  Does this fit in with the information learnt from the Solomons expedition?
Title: Re: Knotted Cloth
Post by: Ric Gillespie on October 31, 2011, 06:51:25 AM
Interesting! Another recent deposit on the 7 site, another visitor.  Does this fit in with the information learnt from the Solomons expedition?

Not necessarily.  It could be something one of our people dropped.  We were there for the first time in 1996 - 14 years before the cloth was found.  We were there again in 2001 - 9 years before the clothe was found.  Last year we found the ferule (metal part) of a pencil eraser that we were able to match up to a particular brand of pencil that our senior archaeologist, Tom King, had with him in 2007.  In three years the Niku environment had completely consumed the wood leaving only the lead and the ferule.

We try hard not to lose stuff, but it happens and we end up "archaeologizing" ourselves.
Title: Re: Knotted Cloth
Post by: Monty Fowler on November 04, 2011, 09:04:03 AM
It continues to amaze me how much TIGHAR has been able to find on Niku considering how "hungry" the environment is, I mean, jeez, three years to gobble up a pencil is pretty darn quick, because that is not exactly second-rate wood.

I remember pulling some bits out of the ground at the College Park aviation archaeology school that looked practically new and were easily identifiable after being in the ground for 50 years or more. Mostly clay soil, temperate climate, not as "active" an ecosystem (but plenty of rain for those two days  ;D ).

LTM,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 CER