Some thoughts on unraveling the chemical complexity of turquoise/green glass trade beads

Summary

INAA data from 421 green glass trade beads, from our bead database, were visually inspected to see if there was a logical process for sorting them. Most of the samples were from the 16th to 18th century archaeological sites in northeastern North America. The first steps were to eliminate samples that came from non-European sources or from later times. This was done by removing samples with very high aluminum or potassium, or with no measurable chlorine. Then, we removed tin-opacified samples. This process left turquoise blue European-made beads from the desired period. The final steps involved the separation of high tin and manganese groups of samples.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• New Research in Material Culture Studies: Archaeological Science Applied to Objects and Contexts   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2014

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): SYM-43,04