The Elemental Analysis of Glass Beads

Ancient glass beads as a window to the ancient world

Glass beads, both beautiful and portable, have been produced and traded globally for thousands of years. Modern archaeologists study these artifacts through sophisticated methods that analyze the glass composition, a process which can be utilized to trace bead usage through time and across regions. This book publishes open-access compositional data obtained from laser ablation – inductively coupled plasma – mass spectrometry, from a single analytical laboratory, providing a uniquely comparative data set. The geographic range includes studies of beads produced in Europe and traded widely across North America and beads from South and Southeast Asia traded around the Indian Ocean and beyond. The contributors provide new insight on the timing of interregional interactions, technologies of bead production and patterns of trade and exchange, using glass beads as a window to the past.

This volume will be a key reference for glass researchers, archaeologists, and any scholars interested in material culture and exchange; it provides a wide range of case studies in the investigation and interpretation of glass bead composition, production and exchange since ancient times.

Contributors: Bernard Gratuze (Institut de Recherche sur les ArchéoMATériaux, Centre Ernest-Babelon, UMR 5060 CNRS/Université d’Orléans), Alicia L. Hawkins (University of Toronto Mississauga), Elliot H. Blair (University of Alabama), Jessica Dalton-Carriger (Roane State Community College), Lee M. Panich (Santa Clara University), Thomas R. Fenn (The University of Oklahoma), Alison K. Carter (University of Oregon), Jennifer Craig (McGill University), Mark Aldenderfer (University of California, Merced), Mudit Trivedi (Stanford University), Lindsey Trombetta (The University of Texas at Austin), Jonathan R. Walz (The Field Museum / SIT-Graduate Institute), Akshay Sarathi (Florida Atlantic University), Carla Klehm (University of Arkansas), Marilee Wood (University of the Witwatersrand), Katherine A. Larson (Corning Museum of Glass), Heather Walder (The Field Museum / University of Wisconsin – La Crosse), Laure Dussubieux (The Field Museum)

Supplementary Material ‘The Elemental Analysis of Glass Beads’ >

Ebook available in Open Access.
This publication is GPRC-labeled (Guaranteed Peer-Reviewed Content).

List of Illustrations List of Tables Foreword

Chapter 1 Contextualizing this volume in the field of glass bead studies Laure Dussubieux and Heather Walder
Chapter 2 Glass beads and human pasts Alison Carter, Elliot H. Blair, Carla Klehm and Lee M. Panich
Part I: European Trade BeadsChapter 3 Characterizing glass recipes for distinctive polychrome glass bead types in Ontario, Canada Alicia Hawkins and Heather Walder
Chapter 4 Simple blue (IIa40) beads from 17th century Mission Santa Catalina de Guale: Dating, origins, and elemental composition Elliot H. Blair and Laure Dussubieux
Chapter 5 Glass trade bead analysis at Upper Hampton Farm (40RH41): A case study for 17th and 18th century Non-Cherokee habitation in East Tennessee Valley Jessica Dalton-Carriger and Elliot H. Blair
Chapter 6 Compositional analysis of compound drawn white glass beads from colonial California: Implications for chronology and dispersal Lee M. Panich, Laure Dussubieux, Tsim D. Schneider, Christopher Canzonieri, Irenne Zwierlein, Christopher Zimmer and Michelle Zimmer
Chapter 7 Glass beads and evidence for early “pre-contact” trade in Northwestern Alaska 137 Thomas R. Fenn, Laure Dussubieux, Heather Walder and Douglas D. Anderson
Part II: Glass Beads in South and Southeast Asia
Chapter 8 The exchange of beads in Central Thailand in the protohistoric period: Glass objects from Phromthin Tai Alison Carter, Laure Dussubieux, Thomas R. Fenn, Thanik Lertcharnrit and T.O. Pryce
Chapter 9 Shifting patterns of glass bead cargo of 15th – 17th century Philippines shipwrecks Jennifer Craig and Laure Dussubieux
Chapter 10 Sources of glass beads from the High Himalayas: 1200 BCE-CE 650 Mark Aldenderfer and Laure Dussubieux
Chapter 11 Inland from the sea: Rethinking the value of mineral soda alumina drawn glass beads from medieval North India Mudit Trivedi and Laure Dussubieux
Part III: Glass Beads in Africa and Western Indian Ocean

Chapter 12 Beads from the lowlands of Northwestern Ethiopia Lindsey Trombetta, Laure Dussubieux, Agazi Negash, Daniel Dalmas, Metasebia Endalamaw, Mulugeta Feseha, Lawrence Todd and John Kappelman
Chapter 13 Inland glass beads in Northeast Tanzania, 8th-17th centuries CE Jonathan R. Walz and Laure Dussubieux
Chapter 14 Glass beads at Unguja Ukuu in the late 1st millennium CE: Results of the 2018 excavation in Zanzibar Akshay Sarathi, Jonathan R. Walz and Laure Dussubieux
Chapter 15 Chemical analysis of precolonial Indian Ocean glass beads found in the southern African interior: linking global objects to local and regional change Carla Klehm and Laure Dussubieux
Chapter 16 Morphology and elemental composition: provenancing glass beads from 12th – 13th century Mayotte 323 Marilee Wood, Laure Dussubieux, Mudit Trivedi and Martial Pauly
Part IV: Glass Beads in the Middle-East
Chapter 17 Elemental composition of glass beads from the eastern Mediterranean region: Chronology and provenance of material from Tel Anafa, Israel Katherine A. Larson and Laure Dussubieux
Chapter 18 South Asian beads at the site of Kish, Iraq Laure Dussubieux

Chapter 19 Technology, chronology, and exchange examined through glass beads Heather Walder and Laure Dussubieux
AppendixSupplementary Materials >

Laure Dussubieux

Laure Dussubieux is a senior research scientist and manages the Elemental Analysis Facility of The Field Museum in Chicago.

Heather Walder

Heather Walder is a research associate of The Field Museum and an assistant teaching professor at the University of Wisconsin – La Crosse. She co-directs Gete Anishinaabeg Izhichigewin, a community-based Indigenous archaeology project in Red Cliff, Wisconsin.