Seventeenth-Century Glass Trade Beads from La Salle's Fort St. Louis and the Grand Village of the Kaskaskia

Abstract

Glass trade beads are described here from two seventeenth-century sites located in the upper Illinois Valley, La Salle's 1682–1691 Fort St. Louis and the nearby Grand Village of the Kaskaskia, destroyed during an Iroquois raid in 1680. Simple monochrome drawn beads characterize both bead assemblages and each contains significant percentages of very small (<2 mm) and small (2–4 mm) size beads. Dominant colors are blue, white, and black. Turquoise-blue beads were a staple of the French trade at this time in the Illinois Country, particularly in transactions involving La Salle and his successors based at Fort St. Louis. Comparative treatment provided as part of this research indicates that there are significant similarities between the bead assemblage from Fort St. Louis and the beads recovered from the 1686 wreck of La Salle's ship Belle in Matagorda Bay off the Texas coast.     

Igbo-Ukwu and the Nile

The external connections of Igbo-Ukwu, in the forest belt of south-eastern Nigeria, around the ninth century AD, are demonstrated by the large numbers of glass beads, apparently of Egyptian manufacture, and are implicit in the rich collection of bronze artwork that lacks known prototypes. Although the metals were mined locally, the labor and the expert alloying and casting of numerous ritual or ornamental objects indicate an accumulation of wealth derived from distant trade of special commodities. The identification of these commodities, however, and the routes by which they—and in the reverse direction the beads—would have traveled, remain unsatisfactorily resolved. A preference is repeated here for an eastern Sahelian routing from Lake Chad to the Middle Nile kingdoms (Alwa and Makuria/Dongola), then at their height, thus avoiding the Sahara. The alternative direction suggested recently (Insoll, T., and Shaw, T. (1997) Gao and Igbo-Ukwu: Beads, interregional trade and beyond. African Archaeological Review, 14:9–23), through Gao on the Niger bend and across the west-central Sahara, seems less likely on grounds of geography and chronology. The essential items of merchandise deriving from Igbo-Ukwu are unlikely to be those commonly assumed for sub-Saharan Africa, notably ivory and slaves, but would have been more local and precious, presumably metals. The bronzes stored and buried at Igbo-Ukwu might be regarded as by-products of this export activity. Demands in the Nile Valley for tin (for bronze alloying) and for silver, both of which occur in the ores exploited, deserve consideration. A call is made for comparative study of metals and their uses between the Middle Nile and West Africa in the first millennium AD—a neglected subject owing to the intellectual gulf that persists between Africanists and Egyptologists.Les contacts extérieurs d'Igbo-Ukwu, dans la région forestière du sud-est du Nigéria, vers le 9^e siècle après J. C., sont indiqués par les très nombreuses perles de verre, apparemment de fabrication Égyptienne. Ils sont aussi suggérés par un ensemble remarquable d'objects en bronze dont on ne connaît aucun prototype. Bien que les métaux proviennent de la région, le travail, et aussi l'alliage et la fonte très spécialisés de nombreux objects rituels ou décoratifs, indiquent une accumulation de richesse résultant du commerce à longues distances de produits recherchés. Pourtant, l'identification de ceux-ci, et les itinéraires pour leur transport—et, en sens inverse, ceux des perles—restent hypothétique. Nous réiterons une préférence pour une route est-Sahelien, de Lac Tchad jusqu'aux royaumes du Nil Moyen (Alwa et Makouria/Dongola), à leur apogée à cette époque, et donc évitant le Sahara. L'autre direction, proposée récemment (dans cette revue par Insoll et Shaw), via Gao sur la boucle du Niger et à travers le Sahara ouest-central, semble moins probable pour les raisons géographiques et chronologiques. Les objets principaux de ce commerce qui provenaient d'Igbo-Ukwu ne seraient pas ceux qui sont normalement imaginés pour l'Afrique Sub-saharienne, notamment l'ivoire et les esclaves; ce seraient des produits plus locaux et précieux, vraisemblablement des métaux. Les bronzes enterrés à Igbo-Ukwu pourraient être les sous-produits de cette activité destinée à l'exportation. La demande dans la vallée du Nil pour l'étain (pour l'alliage du bronze) et pour l'argent, qui existent tous les deux dans les minerais du sud-est du Nigéria, mérite considération. Il faut qu'on fasse des recherches comparatives sur les métaux et leurs emplois entre le Nil Moyen et l'Afrique de l'Ouest durant le premier millénaire après J. C.—un sujet négligé à cause du fossé intellectuel qui persiste entre les études Africanistes et Égyptologiques.     

台湾出土部分古代玻璃珠的科学分析

使用北京大学科技考古实验室的激光剥蚀电感耦合等离子体发射光谱分析了台湾省出土的18件古代玻璃珠子标本．结果表明这些珠子主要属于钙镁玻璃系统、钾玻璃系统、铅玻璃系统以及钠钙玻璃系统．除钠钙玻璃以外其它玻璃的制作技术均和同时期在大陆流行的玻璃制作技术同源。而成分分析结果显示钠钙玻璃可能来自印度或者东南亚,说明中古时期台湾岛是“海上丝绸之路”的重要中转站。     

西周至南北自制玻璃概述

我国玻璃起步较晚,大体始于西周初或先周(殷末),主要是蓝色、浅蓝色或绿色玻璃珠管,与玉、玛瑙配合制成“杂佩”。其时玻璃的主要成分为二氧化硅,并含有少量铅、钡,故称为铅钡玻璃,与西方钠钙玻璃不同而独树一帜。春秋战国时期,西方蜻蜓眼玻璃珠输入我国,从此,以仿羊脂白玉美若明月的“隋侯珠”为代表的自制玻璃与外来玻璃并存。西方(大月氏)吹制玻璃术于汉魏传入我国之后,也出现了自制的空心玻璃器皿。     

北京昌平沙河镇出土蜻蜓眼玻璃珠的科学分析与研究

为探讨北京昌平沙河镇墓葬出土的三枚蜻蜓眼玻璃珠的质地和来源,利用X射线衍射分析（XRD）、激光拉曼光谱分析（LRS）、便携式能量色散X射线荧光分析（PXRF）三种无损分析方法,对玻璃珠基体和眼珠分别进行了结构和化学组成的无损伤测试。结果表明,这三枚蜻蜓眼珠的基质为玻璃态物质,其化学成分表明该玻璃属于钠钙硅酸盐（Na₂OCaOSiO₂）系统;Cu和Co是主要的着色元素。考虑到三枚珠子采用的钴料成分为高铁低锰的进口钴料,同时通过与国内外相似珠子的对比,推测这三枚蜻蜓眼玻璃珠是外国进口物的可能性较高。蜻蜓眼玻璃珠所在墓葬群虽为清代,但根据初步的分析研究可推断,墓主通过收藏或其他途径获得并将其作为随葬品。     

XRF analysis of glass beads from the Mycenaean palace of Nestor at Pylos,Peloponnesus, Greece: new insight into the LBA glass trade

In recent years there has been a growing interest in Mycenaean glass among archaeologists and scientists. Scholars have traditionally thought that all Mycenaean glass was imported either in finished form or as ingots and simply shaped or worked at the Mycenaean sites. Chemical studies of other Mycenaean glass (50 and 43) support the hypothesis that glass was imported into Mycenaean Greece, but there is also indication for glass production in mainland Greece at the palace of Thebes (Nikita and Henderson, 2006). There is no evidence for glass making or working at the Palace of Pylos, yet there is an abundance of glass beads there. The aim of this paper is to identify the technology and source for the glass of these beads and thus to ascertain how Pylos was connected to the broader Mycenaean and Mediterranean economies. The composition of the glasses was determined by means of portable XRF analysis and compared to that of other Late Bronze Age glasses from Egypt, Mesopotamia and mainland Greece. Four blue beads coloured with cobalt and one blue bead coloured with copper have Ti and Zr compositions consistent with an Egyptian origin of manufacture while five other beads show Ti and Zr concentrations consistent with a Mesopotamian origin (Shortland et al., 2007). Based on the dearth of Egyptian and Mesopotamian imports in Pylos, the presented data support the hypothesis that Pylos was receiving via internal Greek trade routes foreign-produced glass, which may have been worked abroad or in Greece.     

Etched (carnelian) beads from northeast and southeast Arabia

Etched beads from northeast and southeast Arabia are usually not cited in connection with east-west trade, because they remain unknown to most scholars. There is ample evidence, however, from sites on the Arabian shores of the Persian Gulf that the region participated in active trade during several periods. Etched beads are one of the commodities testifying to the existence of maritime links. A high percentage of the etched beads found belong to the Early Bronze Age and the Pré-islamique récent (PIR)-period, although other periods are also represented.     

Gao and Igbo-Ukwu: Beads, interregional trade, and beyond

Recent excavations in the city of Gao in eastern Mali have uncovered a sizable assemblage of imported and locally produced beads which are similar in many ways to the beads excavated at the site of Igbo-Ukwu in Nigeria. The similarities between the two assemblages suggest that they are indicative of interregional trade along the River Niger. As the likely source of many of the beads is Fustat in Egypt, Gao may well have been the middleman between Igbo-Ukwu and the former site. This route, it is argued, is more satisfactory than a direct east-west trade across the Sudannic zone, which has been argued for previously as a channel of international trade for Igbo-Ukwu.     

Death by gunshot: Biocultural implications of trauma at Mission San Luis

Contrary to the popular myth known as the Black Legend, very little evidence of traumatic injury and death of Native Americans at the hands of Spaniards in the southeastern USA has been uncovered in the archaeological record. This paper reports on the circumstances of death of an individual from Mission San Luis de Talimali (AD 1656-1704), located in northern Florida. A determination of biological affinity of the victim is not possible based on currently available skeletal and contextual evidence. Presence of .44 calibre lead shot in the region of the lumbar vertebrae indicates that the individual probably died from a gunshot wound or complications that followed. To our knowledge, this is the only instance of death in this manner known from Spanish Florida. Bioarchaeological evidence indicates that death resulting from the use of firearms was apparently minimal in this region of colonial America, and other factors—including infectious disease, malnutrition, and forced relocation—were of far greater importance in explaining the precipitous decline and depopulation of native groups in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, at least in Spanish Florida.     

‘Fighting Stick of Thunder’: Firearms and the Zulu Kingdom: The Cultural Ambiguities of Transferring Weapons Technology

This paper investigates the reluctance of the nineteenth-century Zulu people of southern Africa fully to embrace firearms in their war-making, and posits that this was an expression of their military culture. Not that the Zulu could not appreciate the battle-winning potential of the new military technology, or were dissuaded from increasingly determined efforts to obtain large quantities of firearms from traders. Yet, because firearms were prestigious weapons, monopolized by the elite, or professional hunters, Zulu commoners had little opportunity to master them and continued to rely instead on their traditional weapons, particularly the stabbing-spear. Even so, cultural rather than practical reasons were behind the rank and file’s reluctance to upgrade firearms to their prime weapon. Employing recorded contemporary Zulu oral evidence, praise songs, and statements of prisoners-of-war, to unpack the Zulus’ own perception of their heroic military culture, it is argued that, because of the engrained Zulu cultural consensus that only hand-to-hand combat was appropriate conduct for a true fighting-man, killing at a distance with a firearm was of inferior significance, and did not even entail the ritual pollution that followed homicide and the shedding of human blood. Only close combat was worthy of praise and commemoration.     

The Reliquary Bust of Saint Lambert from the Liège Cathedral,Belgium: Gemstones and Glass Beads Analysis by pXRF and Raman Spectroscopy

The reliquary bust of Saint Lambert, hosted in the Treasure of the Liège Cathedral, was produced in the early 15^th century. This exceptional goldsmithery piece is covered with gold-coated silver, and decorated by approximately 400 stones, analysed by Raman and pXRF techniques to determine their mineralogical and chemical composition. The results confirm the identification of one hundred pearls, twenty-six rock crystals, ten amethysts, two diamonds, and numerous glass beads with a green, blue, colourless, turquoise, orange or red colour. The glass beads show a soda-lime composition, confirming that they are contemporary of the bust and imported from Venice, as reported by historical sources. Orange beads show a lead composition and the red stone a triplet with quartz, indicating that they were added to the bust later. The cutting of gems and beads shows also a significant evolution. The metal contains approximately 60% of Au and 40% of Ag. The origin of gemstones was difficult to establish, due to the absence of characteristic trace elements, but the chemical elements used for the manufacture and colouring of the beads were determined. This study confirms the trade of stones between Liège and Venice during medieval times.     

Obsolete Muskets,Lethal Remingtons: Heterogeneity and Firepower in Weapons of The Frontier War,Argentina, 1869–1877

Abstract

This paper deals with firearms that were employed by the Argentine army in frontier warfare between 1869 and 1877. Documentary information and archaeological assemblages from two contemporary military facilities — Fort General Paz and Fortín Algarrobos — are combined to characterize the armament in service during those years. This was a crucial period, during which a process of modernisation and standardisation of the army’s armament started, centred on the incorporation of Remington single-shot breech-loading rifles and carbines. However, the archaeological record shows that this process was slow and that an astonishing variety of older firearms (flintlocks, percussion smoothbores and rifles) remained in service, causing logistic and operative problems, and reducing the army’s combat effectiveness. The paper then discusses the impact of the incorporation of the Remington guns on frontier warfare, critiquing commonly held determinist characterisations, and placing the Remington’s effect in a broader political and economic context.