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.     

Towards a typology of stone beads in the Neolithic Levant

Abstract

This study is an attempt to develop a comprehensive typology of the earliest stone bead assemblages in the southern Levant from Late Natufian and Neolithic sites. I propose this typology as a tool for studying stone beads almost a century after Horace Beck published his monumental bead typology. Beads are often neglected artifacts in archaeological excavations, but a bead typology can contribute to definitions of relative chronology and to a broader understanding of social and economic aspects of certain prehistoric societies.     

GLASS TRADE BEADS FROM THE ENGLISH COLONIAL PERIOD IN THE SOUTHEAST,CA. A.D. 1607–1783

Abstract

The study of glass trade beads has contributed much to our chronological understanding of the colonial period in the Eastern Woodlands of North America. Indeed, this class of artifact has allowed archaeologists to identify and conduct research at important archaeological sites that never appeared in the European historical record. In the Southeast, the best chronological resolution established by current bead chronologies relates either to sixteenth- to mid-seventeenthcentury Spanish-traded bead assemblages or eighteenthcentury French-traded bead assemblages. There is a conspicuous gap, however, in glass bead chronologies associated with the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English-Indian trade in the Southeast. In this paper, I address this gap by characterizing a large sample of trade beads (n = 35,309) found in individual mortuary assemblages recovered from a number of Southeastern Indian sites. This is the first time a regional synthesis of this scale has been conducted for the English colonial period in the Southeast. In order to begin to refine the bead chronology of this period, I also present the results of a quantitative seriation (using a technique known as correspondence analysis) of the same mortuary assemblages. While the results of this exploratory technique represent a preliminary stage in this process, they nevertheless identify a number of temporal trends that can be used to derive occupation date estimates for sites spanning the English colonial period in the Southeast (ca. 1607–1783).     

Prehistoric shell beads on the Georgia coast

ABSTRACT

The prehistoric peoples living along the Georgia coast fabricated and used shell beads for millennia. Out of a number of mollusk species inhabiting the region, only a few were selected for the fabrication of beads. The knobbed whelk (Busycon carica) was the most common species used, and it represents the most common whelk found in Atlantic coastal waters. The lightning whelk (Busycon sinistrum), the second most common whelk in the region, was occasionally used in the production of beads. Small numbers of beads were made from marginella and olive shells and, rarely, from bivalve species. Small beads were manufactured from the body whorl of whelks, while larger beads were fabricated from whelk collumella. Shell beads appear in small quantities in Late Archaic period contexts, and then almost disappear during the Woodland period. Beads reappear in quantities at about AD 800 in the Early Mississippian period. More shell beads have been recovered from Mississippian period archaeological contexts along the northern Georgia coast than along the southern coast, reflective of cultural differences between these two geographic areas in the post-Woodland period era.     

Shell beads from Mississippian sites in the northern Yazoo Basin,Mississippi

ABSTRACT

In this paper, which focuses on the Mississippian period in the northern Yazoo Basin, Mississippi, I present some interesting findings from research done over the past century. In this area, most shell beads come from surface collections, or from excavated burials in cemeteries or ossuaries. Burial styles include extended, flexed, semi-flexed, and bundles, with very few cremations having been encountered. Bead burials also seem to reflect both common and elite people, and there are some interesting discoveries concerning association of shell beads. I will use 33 archaeologically investigated major sites as examples to illustrate an unexpected paucity of shell beads and other shell ornaments at some of the most heavily populated Mississippian sites in the Lower Mississippi Valley. Two other sites with shell beads in the uplands will be used for comparison.     

Shells below,stars above: four perspectives on shell beads

ABSTRACT

In the papers assembled here, five scholars focus on shell beads at site, watershed, and regional scales. Themes include manufacturing techniques such as bore size discussions, changes in bead preferences over time and geography, the appearance of beaded regalia, and shell bead meaning. Claassen’s paper addresses the beads at Late Archaic Indian Knoll; Connaway discusses shell beads in northwestern Mississippi; Pearson looks at beads from coastal Georgia; and Webster and King examine beads before and after European contact in the Potomac basin.     

The Chronology of Insiza Cluster Khami‐Phase Sites in South‐Western Zimbabwe: Compositional Insights from pXRF and Raman Analysis of Excavated Exotic Glass Finds

Fourteen glass beads and one glass fragment from Khami‐period (ad 1400–1830) sites of Danamombe, Naletale, Gomoremhiko, Nharire and Zinjanja, in Zimbabwe, were analysed by pXRF and Raman spectroscopy with the intention of correlating the results with associated radiocarbon dates. The results show that Zinjanja and an earlier part of the Danamombe stratigraphic context had Khami Indo‐Pacific beads (15th–17th centuries) corresponding with Torwa occupational layers. Other European beads and one bottle fragment [high‐lime, low‐alkali (HLLA) glass] dating from the 16th to the 19th centuries were confined to the top stratigraphic layers of Danamombe and Naletale, which coincide with the later Rozvi occupational layers. Gomoremhiko had one Mapungubwe–Zimbabwe bead series (13th–15th centuries), which suggests that it was probably earlier than the other sites. All European beads are made of soda–lime plant‐ash glass with high alumina, which makes them comparable with glass produced through the Mediterranean traditions in Southern Europe.     

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。     

The beads of Indian Knoll

ABSTRACT

Busycon discs, barrels, rings, and columellas, Leptoxis and Prunum shell beads, and stone and coal beads from Webb and Moore excavations at Indian Knoll (15OH2) are discussed in this paper as the author seeks to determine how beads were deployed to convey social information during the Archaic period. After wrestling with the count of beads (ca. 27,337) and the number of burials (ca. 260) with beads, the types of beads are tallied and measurements given based on the author’s examination of beads. The presence and distribution of beads in the shell-bearing stratum and the hardpan, and their distribution among women, men, and subadults, are explored. The beads appear to have been assembled rather than manufactured as sets. An argument is made that shell beads were used at Indian Knoll as regalia for members of and victims of a hunt god/spirit cult. Leptoxis sashes are identified in 36 burials and discussed as regalia. Bead co-occurrence with atlatls, faunal species, and violent death is examined as part of the hypothesized cult rituals.     

Overseas imports on the Blue Nile: Chemical compositional analysis of glass beads from Soba,Nubia

Archaeological evidence as well as textual sources leave no doubt about Alwa's (Alodia's) intense transcultural connections, further corroborated by understudied overseas glass bead imports found there. This paper presents results of an analysis of 23 glass beads from Soba, the most prosperous capital of medieval Nubia. Compositional analyses using laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) have identified glass belonging to a number of broad compositional groups. Three samples were made of soda lime low-alumina glass produced in the Middle East (v-Na-Ca) and Egypt (m/v-Na-Ca). The remaining beads were made of two types of mineral–soda high-alumina glass (m-Na-Al) North Indian in origin. The results of this study provide new evidence for the provenance and chronology of glass beads available in medieval Soba and Northeast Africa, and contribute new data to research on trade contacts of that time.     

Southern African glass beads: chemistry,glass sources and patterns of trade

Three-hundred-and-sixty glass beads from 19 archaeological sites in southern Africa dating between about the 8th and 16th centuries AD were analyzed using LA-ICP-MS, determining 47 chemical elements. The eight different bead series, previously defined on morphological characteristics, possess different glass chemistries. Some bead series were made from plant-ash glasses, others from soda-alumina glasses. Zhizo series beads of the late 1st millennium AD were probably made from Iranian glass. Later bead series were made of glass probably manufactured in South Asia, though there are changes through time in both South Asian glass recipes and bead morphologies.     

European Trade in Malawi: The Glass Bead Evidence

In most African contexts, glass beads are evidence of direct and indirect exchanges between communities and are often useful chronological markers. Their analysis contributes to a better understanding of the social relationships between ancient societies. Over the last decade, the archaeometric analysis of glass beads has gained ground in Sub-Saharan Africa, but large regions across southeastern Africa have remained underexplored. Glass beads excavated from the Hora 1, Hora 5, and Mazinga 1 sites in the Kasitu Valley of the Mzimba District of northern Malawi were analyzed using laser ablation—inductively coupled plasma—mass spectrometry (LA-ICP- MS). These are granitic rock shelter sites located 40 km from Lake Malawi. They have predominantly Early Holocene and Pleistocene deposits but with a scattering of more recent material at the top. Analysis revealed that most of the beads were from European manufacture with one exception—a bead that has a composition typical of South Asia and that circulated from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century AD. Although Europeans were not present in the region before the second part of the nineteenth century, the presence of European beads testifies to trade directly or indirectly involving Europeans, most likely in association with increased trade in ivory and enslaved persons. The presence of the bead from South Asia and two cowrie beads from a fourth nearby site (Kadawonda 1) that dates to the seventh century AD show that European trade was the most recent manifestation of connections between the hinterland and the coast.

     

Ancient long-distance trade in Western North America: new AMS radiocarbon dates from Southern California

Eleven Olivella biplicata spire-lopped shell beads from six sites located 250–365 km inland from the Pacific coast of southern California produced AMS dates between 11,200 and 7860 CAL BP. Olivella shell beads were well-documented items of prestige and media of exchange in Native California, and recovery of these examples from inland contexts indicates low-level exchange between resident populations of the coast and the southwestern Great Basin by at least 10,300–10,000 CAL years BP. These findings represent some of the earliest unequivocal evidence for long-distance trade in western North America and push the antiquity of this important form of inter-group interaction back several thousand years earlier than previously thought.     

Teardrops at the Lake: Chemistry of New Kingdom to Makuria Glass Beads and Pendants Between the First and Second Nile Cataracts

International expeditions extensively excavated Lower Nubia (between the First and Second Nile Cataracts) before it was submerged under the waters of Lake Nasser and Lake Nubia. The expeditions concentrated on monumental architecture and cemeteries, including sites at Qustul and Serra East, where the New Kingdom, and Napatan, Meroitic, Nobadian, and Makurian-period elites and common people were buried, ca. 1400 BC–AD 1400. Although the finds abound in adornments, including bead imports from Egypt and South India/Sri Lanka, only a few traces of local glass bead-making have been recorded in Nubia so far. Based on results of laser ablation–inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) analysis of 76 glass beads, pendants, and chunks from Qustul and Serra East contexts, dated between the New Kingdom and the Makuria Kingdom periods, this paper discusses the composition and provenance of two types of plant-ash soda-lime (v-Na-Ca) glass, two types of mineral soda-lime glass (m-Na-Ca), and two types of mineral-soda-high alumina (m-Na-Al) glass. It also presents the remains of a probable local glass bead-making workshop dated to the period of intensive long-distance bead trade in Northeast Africa, AD 400–600.

     

Glass Trade Beads from the Goose Lake Outlet #3 Site (20MQ140), Marquette County,Michigan

This article describes analyses of the glass trade-bead assemblage of the Goose Lake Outlet #3 (GLO#3) site (20MQ140), a probable short-term winter campsite located in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Based on typological and attribute analysis of the beads, which employed the Kidd and Kidd classification system and comparison with published “glass bead periods” or GBPs developed for assemblages in Ontario, the GLO#3 bead assemblage is assigned a date within the 1630s. Comparison with other midwestern protohistoric assemblages further supports this interpretation. Situated within a protohistoric period of intercultural interaction and exchange, the material culture from the site provides archaeological evidence for some of the earliest arrivals of European-made trade items in the Midwest.     

Late Holocene Artifact Patterns and the Introduction of Herding to Semi-Arid Coastal Namaqualand,South Africa

ABSTRACT

Considerable change occurred in the Late Holocene Later Stone Age of Namaqualand, northwestern South Africa. Focusing on stone artifacts, pottery, and ostrich eggshell beads, the cultural sequence for the area is described. Two additions are identified, complicating the traditional model for the introduction of herding into the country. From the mid-Holocene onward, lithic assemblages are based on milky and/or clear quartz and cryptocrystalline silica and initially contain many backed tools with scrapers more common during the first millennium BC. These are hunter-gatherer assemblages. During the final centuries BC, backed bladelet-rich assemblages based on clear quartz appear, with the earliest examples demonstrating typological continuity with the existing assemblages. About 1,500 years ago, expedient assemblages lacking retouch and based on poorer quality quartz appear. The three types co-occur during the last 1,500 years, occasionally in combination with one another. This contrasts strongly with other parts of South Africa where just two distinct assemblage types are identified, suggesting that the hunter-gatherer-herder dichotomy is not universally valid. The artifact patterns between about 200 cal BC and cal AD 500 and the introduction of livestock suggest considerable cultural and social change, heralding the onset of a local Neolithic, but the exact mechanisms remain unclear.     

Land Snail Shell Beads in the Sub-Saharan Archaeological Record: When,Where, and Why?

Shell beads are well established in the archaeological record of sub-Saharan Africa and appear as early as 75,000 BP; however, most research has focused on ostrich eggshell (OES) and various marine mollusc species. Beads made from various land snails shells (LSS), frequently described as Achatina, also appear to be widespread. Yet tracking their appearance and distribution is difficult because LSS beads are often intentionally or unintentionally lumped with OES beads, there are no directly dated examples, and bead reporting in general is highly variable in the archaeological literature. Nevertheless, Achatina and other potential cases of LSS beads are present at over 80 archaeological sites in at least eight countries, spanning the early Holocene to recent past. Here, we collate published cases and report on several more. We also present a new case from Magubike Rockshelter in southern Tanzania with the first directly dated LSS beads, which we use to illustrate methods for identifying LSS as a raw material. Despite the long history of OES bead production on the continent and the abundance of land snails available throughout the Pleistocene, LSS beads appear only in the late Holocene and are almost exclusively found in Iron Age contexts. We consider possible explanations for the late adoption of land snails as a raw material for beadmaking within the larger context of environmental, economic, and social processes in Holocene Africa. By highlighting the existence of these artifacts, we hope to facilitate more in-depth research on the timing, production, and distribution of LSS beads in African prehistory.     

Glass beads and pendants from Meroitic and Nobadian Lower Nubia,Sudan: Chemical compositional analysis using laser ablation‐inductively coupled plasma‐mass spectrometry

This paper presents a detailed elemental analysis of 64 glass beads and pendants dated to the Meroitic period (first–third centuries ad ) and the Nobadian period (fourth–sixth centuries) from burial sites in the Lower Nubian Nile Valley region. Laser ablation‐inductively coupled plasma‐mass spectrometry (LA‐ICP‐MS) was used to determine the chemical composition of the glass and to gain knowledge about its origin. Four main glass types were identified: low‐alumina soda‐lime glass, high‐alumina glass, plant‐ash soda‐lime glass, and mixed‐alkali glass. Mineral soda‐lime glass (m‐Na‐Ca) of East Mediterranean/Egyptian provenance is dominant within the low‐alumina glass group from Meroitic and Nobadian periods. Mineral soda high‐alumina glass (m‐Na‐Al) appeared in the Nobadian bead assemblages, and the m‐Na‐Al 1 subtype was produced in Sri Lanka/South India. An initial insight into the origin of the glass beads in Nubia from the first to sixth centuries is described, indicating the first evidence for the presence of Asian objects in Nubia. The data obtained for the bead trade in North‐east Africa in this study has allowed a new light to be shed on the westward flow of Asian glass during a time of intensive maritime trade contacts with the wider Indian Ocean world.     

NEUTRON ACTIVATION ANALYSIS OF AD 1660–1930 EUROPEAN COPPER-COLOURED BLUE GLASS TRADE BEADS FROM ONTARIO,CANADA

Blue glass trade beads from well-dated late seventeenth- to early twentieth-century sites and collections have been analysed non-destructively by instrumental neutron activation analysis. The beads display enough variations in their elemental contents to allow us to characterize the different chemistries. The implication of these results is that similar chemical analyses of blue beads from undated archaeological sites may be used to help date the sites, since each bead chemistry has a specific earliest period.     

THE BEAD MAKER’S MIDDEN: EVIDENCE OF LATE PREHISTORIC SHELL BEAD PRODUCTION ON OSSABAW ISLAND,GEORGIA

Abstract

In 2005, archaeological excavations were undertaken in a single shell midden at a late prehistoric Irene phase (circa A.D. 1380) site on Ossabaw Island, Georgia. The excavations were designed specifically to collect information on the fabrication of shell beads and other shell ornaments. A considerable amount of stone was recovered, almost all of which is petrified wood used specifically in the production of “microdrills” for perforating shell beads. Also recovered were large quantities of fragmented knobbed whelk (Busycon carica), the principal raw material used for shell beads, as well as examples of shell beads in all stages of manufacture. The excavations of this midden, designated the Bead Maker’s Midden, produced abundant information bearing on shellworking technology, including the full range of tools and raw materials used and the sequences involved in the production of shell beads. Replication experiments were conducted to validate the archaeological findings. The collected data provide direct evidence of the process of shell bead production during the Late Mississippi period.