Reddit reviews HISTORY AND SCIENCE OF KNOTS (Knots and Everything)

Most working knots are pre-historic or a-historic.

Since natural fibre rope tends to decompose quickly, most knots do not survive for archaeologists to find them (the biggest exception is knots used in Egyptian tombs). By the time people started writing about knots such as in Ancient Greece, most of the key nautical knots were already in widespread use.

Other knots are not mentioned in ancient history, so we can guess that they were developed more recently, but they were invented by sailors who were either illiterate or didn't bother writing them down, but instead passed the knot on to other sailors by direct instruction. Given that sailors tend to travel widely, the most useful knots spread globally (probably rather quickly). Eventually those knots got documented by someone like Clifford Ashley, but the story of their original invention was lost by that point.

The Ashley Book of Knots has a number of cute stories in it although the vast majority of its knots have no history. The History and Science of Knots discusses the methodological problems with determining a history as much as history itself.

As to your particular example, you can figure out the properties of a knot by testing it. People like Ashley and the International Guild of Knot Tyers have extensively tested knots that have come down to us through history. Although many knots work so differently in synthetic fibre that a lot of the knowledge from even the mid 20th Century doesn't apply on a modern ship.