Chronology, Exchange, Identity: Elemental Analysis of Glass Beads for Assessing Regional Interaction

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jessica Dalton-Carriger. Elliot Blair.

Native American inhabitants in the interior Southeast did not experience direct and prolonged European contact until the late 1600s, however European trade goods still managed to filter their way into the area. While trade goods are present, site chronology has not been clearly defined in many areas. Both pXRF and LA-ICP-MS testing on glass trade beads from East Tennessee and surrounding states has revealed trends in their chemical composition which can be correlated to date ranges. This method...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marilee Wood. Laure Dussubieux.

A number of potash lead silicate glass beads have been recovered from excavations at the 14th to 16th century Tanzanian site of Songo Mnara, a small but wealthy stone town on an island just south of Kilwa Kisiwani. LA-ICP-MS analysis has shown that two groups of Chinese beads are present, one that dates to the early 15th century, when Zheng He’s fleets visited the East Coast, and the other from around the turn of the 17th century when European glass beads began to be traded in that region. These...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dennis Blanton. Elliot Blair.

Glass beads are one of the most important artifact types on colonial archaeological sites, providing insights into colonial trade networks and helping address critical chronological issues. In this paper, using a sample of 16th to 17th century beads from Mission Santa Catalina de Guale (GA), the Glass Site (GA), and Jamestown (VA), as well as a comparative sample from Venice, we use LA-ICP-MS and XRF analyses to examine elemental variability within and across these assemblages. Primarily...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Laure Dussubieux. Thomas Oliver Pryce.

Glass appears in Southeast Asia at the début of the Iron Age, around the middle of the 1st millennium BC. Variations in Southeast Asian glass type distributions were found to be excellent markers of changes in cultural and economic interactions but are based heavily on material from Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. Other regions, in particular Myanmar’s pivotal position with India, have remained largely unexplored, making it difficult to draw a global picture for Southeast Asia during this...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Abidemi Babalola. Laure Dussubieux. Susan McIntosh.

The site of Igbo Olokun in the city of Ife, in southwestern Nigeria has been identified as a primary glass and glass beads production center dating to the "Classic" period (12th-15th c.), but glass from well-recorded contexts has been rare. Excavations in 2011-2012 produced over twelve thousand drawn glass beads. LA-ICP-MS analysis of 49 glass bead samples revealed two main compositional groups: High Lime, High Alumina (HLHA); and Low Lime, High Alumina (LLHA). While the occurrence of HLHA...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alicia Hawkins. Joseph Petrus. R.G.V. Hancock.

We present the results of a preliminary study of glass bead chemistry from several contact period Wendat sites in Ontario. Much important work on the chemistry of glass beads found in Ontario was carried out by Hancock and colleagues using Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis in the last several decades. We compare our results with theirs. In some cases we were able to analyze the same beads that had been previously examined using INAA. We consider our results in terms of insights they may...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mark Aldenderfer. Laure Dussubieux.

Samdzong is found in the Kali Gandaki drainage in Upper Mustang, Nepal, just to the south of Tibet. Known from historical sources that date to the 17th C., Samdzong was an important waypoint on the salt trade route between South India and the Tibetan Plateau. Aside from salt from the plateau, these documents say little about other materials that were exchanged, and virtually nothing about their places of origin. The antiquity of the salt route was simply assumed. Excavations at the site...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Vanessa Muros. Nikos Zacharias. William Shelley. Ioanna Kakoulli.

The archaeometric study of glass provides not only an understanding about the technology and manufacture of this material, but can also shed light on aspects of ancient societies such as trade, craft specialization, and cultural connections. The research presented looks to answer questions about glass production and trade in southeastern Europe during the LBA and EIA through the analysis of glass and faience beads from the sites of Lofkënd (southwest Albania) and Methone (northern Greece). This...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Heather Walder.

Through LA-ICP-MS elemental analyses of 874 glass trade beads from 31 early colonial-era archaeological sites in the Upper Great Lakes region of North America, and from late 17th century contexts historically associated with French exploration of the Gulf Coast of Texas, I identify patterning in the spatial and temporal distribution of European glass-bead recipe groups. Trading relationships among Indigenous peoples and outsiders in this French "Upper Country" took place on a complex "middle...