Shell and glass beads from the tombs of Kindoki, Mbanza Nsundi, Lower Congo

The ancient Kingdom of Kongo originated in Central Africa in the 14th century. In the 15th century, the Portuguese organized tight contacts with the Bakongo. From then on European goods gained new significance in the local culture and even found their way into funerary rites. Among the most important grave goods in the Kingdom of Kongo were shell and glass beads. They occur in many tombs and symbolize wealth, status, or femininity. At the burial site of Kindoki, linked with the former capital of Kongo’s Nsundi province, a great number of shell and glass beads were found together with symbols of power in tombs attributed primarily to the first half of the 19th century. Determining the origin of these beads and their use in the Kongo Kingdom leads to interesting insights into the social and economic organization of the old Bakongo society, their beliefs, and the symbolic meaning of the beads

African-European contacts in the Kongo Kingdom (sixteenth-eighteenth centuries): new archaeological insights from Ngongo Mbata (Lower Congo, DRC)

Ngongo Mbata, the main and most affluent center of the Kongo kingdom’s Mbata province in the 17th century, is well known from the historical sources, but virtually unexplored in archaeological publications. Ngongo Mbata is unique in that it hosted a monumental stone building about which the historical record remains silent. This makes it particularly challenging from the point of view of historical archaeology. In this paper historical data, unpublished excavation results from the 1930s and our own fieldwork undertaken in 2012-2013 are brought together, to tell a new story of early African-European contacts in the interior of West Central Africa

Guide to the Description and Classification of Glass Beads Found in the Americas

This guide provides information relevant to the description and classification of glass beads recovered from archaeological sites in North and South America and the Caribbean. It is partly based on and intended to be used with A Classification System for Glass Beads for the Use of Field Archaeologists, by Kenneth and Martha Kidd. Material presented includes a critical evaluation of several bead classification schemes, an overview of bead manufacturing techniques, a descriptive listing of the various classes and types of beads that have been recorded to date, and an explication of the physical attributes of a bead, as well as interpretative material concerning dating and likely origins

Archaeological Evidence for Beadmaking in Riga, Latvia, During the 13th-14th Centuries

Archaeological Evidence for Beadmaking in Riga, Latvia, During The 13th-14th Centuries, by Karlis Karklins (1991, 18:11-13

The Trade Beads of Fort Rivière Tremblante, a North West Company Post on the Upper Assiniboine, Saskatchewan

The archaeological investigation of Fort Rivière Tremblante, a North West Company post that operated from 1791 to 1798 in what is now southeastern Saskatchewan, Canada, yielded 20,119 glass beads representing 63 varieties, as well as seven wampum. While the bulk of the collection is composed of drawn seed beads, it also contains an exceptional variety of fancy wound beads. A comparison with bead assemblages recovered from other contemporary fur trade sites in western Canada reveals that both the North West Company and the Hudson’s Bay Company carried much the same bead inventory in the region around the turn of the 19th century, with slight variations to accommodate local taste

The Levin Catalogue of Mid-19th-Century Beads

The Levin Catalogue is composed of two similar collections of glass and stone beads assembled by Moses Lewin Levin, a London bead merchant whose business operated from 1830 to 1913. A total of 621 beads of 128 different varieties makes up the collections which can be dated to the period 1851-1869. Although the beads are recorded as having been used in the African trade, several have counterparts at North American sites, thereby making the catalogue a potentially valuable research tool for those involved in the study of North American trade beads as well

An Unusual Modern Bead (?) from China

An Unusual Modern Bead (?) From China, By Karlis Karklins (1996, 28:19-20

Photographing Patinated Glass Beads

Photographing Patinated Glass Beads, By Karlis Karklins (1994, 25:13

Frit-Core Beads in North America

Among the earliest European beads to reach North America is a distinctive group generally referred to in the archaeological literature as frit-core or frit-cored, so called because their interiors consist of sintered sand rather than solid glass. Likely produced in France, they are restricted to northeastern North America and have short temporal ranges, making them ideal chronological indicators for the latter part of the 16th century and the very early 17th century