If You Didn't Know Better...: The Enigma of Jamestown's "Spanish" Beads

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Opening the Vault: What Collections Can Say About Jamestown’s Global Trade Network", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Since the beginning, excavations of the Jamestown Rediscovery Project have yielded large numbers of glass beads that traditionally are anticipated in early sixteenth century contexts, and very often with Spanish affiliations. New elemental and qualitative analyses bring understanding to this anomalous assemblage in a seventeenth-century English setting, including its actual chronological position and its ultimate origin.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2023   •
• Opening the Vault: What Collections Can Say About Jamestown’s Global Trade Network

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow