Recent Research on Glass Beads and Ornaments in North America

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Recent Research on Glass Beads and Ornaments in North America" at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Glass beads and ornaments in North America have long been used as markers of contact between Indigenous and European communities as well as chronological markers. However, more recent work has expanded research questions to explore how glass ornaments can bring more nuanced understandings of exchange, connectivity, and identity by the diverse peoples who traded, modified, and used these objects. The papers in this session examine glass beads and ornaments from across North America and use a variety of approaches to examine these topics—from the use of compositional techniques to explore the origins and exchange of glass beads—to typological studies that consider how particular types and colors of beads were selected and used.