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[Barber's Prehistoric Textiles] provides all the necessary chapter, verse and photographs to counter the often-voiced argument amongst sceptics that the Shroud's herringbone weave could not date from the 1st century AD. As Barber points out (p.186ff), in the ancient salt mines at Hallstatt near Vienna the miners of the early 1st millennium BC used old rags to light their way. Scraps of these became preserved in crevices from which have come to light more than a hundred pieces of early 1st millennium BC cloth, many of these twill weave, and five specifically of herringbone.

By way of a further example, on p.196 Barber reproduces the remains of a black horsehair sash, found in a bog at Armoy, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, again dating from the early 1st millennium BC, and bearing the closest resemblance to the Shroud's weave. As Barber goes on to point out (p.190), the Hallstatt folk worked with flax (i.e. linen), as well as wool and other fibres. So although this is not to suggest that the Shroud actually derived from the Hallstatt culture, which was broadly Celtic (as in the case of ancient Egypt linens, the Hallstatt fabrics simply survived due to exceptional environmental conditions), it is quite clear that the Shroud's herringbone twill weave represents no obstacle to a first century AD date.