The so-called "Russian" beads (aka tubular, cornerless
hexagonal/heptagonal/octagonal) are very distinctive and widely distributed
being widely found in North America with concentrations in the Northwest,
Great Lakes, and Florida. They were also popular in Central America
(Guatemala) and Africa. I cannot recall their presence in the Middle East
or Asia. Would like to hear about their presence there if anyone has any
information. There are thick-walled and thin-walled examples.

The beads were manufactured in Bohemia but when exactly they began to be
made is still uncertain. I believe the earliest date postulated for them
was ca. 1775 in the Great Lakes region by George Quimby though he later
admitted that was probably too early. When analyzing the beads recovered
from St. Eustatius by Norm Barka, I performed a survey of the literature
and found relevant data for this type from 36 sites. This revealed the
following. The site date range was 1680-1910 with a core date of 1805-1860
(the optimal period of bead utilization based on the relative frequency of
sites producing this type over time) and a mode of 1830. This was published
in BEADS 1 back in 1989. There certainly has to be more evidence now to
refine the core dates and it would be great if someone would undertake a
study of them like the one Bill Billeck did for the distinctive
red-on-white or cornaline d'Aleppo beads published in BEADS 20.

Bob Hoover's comment that native peoples had bead preferences is very true.
While the indigenous peoples may have initially been wowed by all the new
and exciting items presented to them by early explorers and traders, beads
included, and took whatever they were offered, they quickly became adept at
specifying exactly what they wanted and negotiating better deals.There
are a number of recorded instances where eager traders who had brought
sacks of beads popular last season hoping to make a killing were
chagrined to find that the same people were no longer interested in them
and wanted new styles, sizes and colors.

Karlis
On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 10:04 AM, Burgess, Laurie <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Bob Hoover is right.  The chemical composition of these beads show that
> they were made in Bohemia, now the modern-day Czech Republic, so the common
> name of Russian blues is not accurate, although still widely used.  A
> number of studies have dealt with the composition of these beads:
>
> Kenyon, Ian, Susan Kenyon Ron Hancock and Susan Aufreiter
>     1995  Neutron Activation Analysis of Some 19th Century Facetted Glass
> Trade Beads from Ontario, Canada, that have Chemical Compositions
> Resembling Bohemian Glass.  The Bead Forum 27:4-9.
>
> Glascock, Michael D., and Robert J. Speakman
>     2002  LA-ICP-MS of European Glass Beads. Paper presented at the 2002
> Annual Meeting of the Society for  American Archaeology, Denver.
>
> Burgess, Laurie and Laure Dussubieux
>    2007 Chemical Composition of Late 18th- and 19th-Century Glass Beads
> from Western North America: Clues to Sourcing Beads.  Beads: Journal of the
> Society of Bead Researchers 19:58-73.
>
> I still don't have a really good date for their appearance in N. America.
>  Lester Ross has suggested the late 18th century.  Like Paul Webb, I'd be
> interested to hear if anyone on Histarch has a tightly-dated site where
> these beads occur. They occur in a of range colors in addition to the
> ubiquitous dark and medium blues (including a grayish purple).
>
> The beads we sampled (dark blue, green and colorless beads, with six
> straight sides and two rows of ground facets) are from Sullivan's Island in
> Washington state, from the Columbia River, not all that far from Fort
> Vancouver (HBC).  Due to the early 20th c. excavation techniques used I
> can't identify when certain bead varieties show up, though the site was in
> use from the late 18th to the late 19th century.  But there were over 2,000
> of these faceted beads present.
>
> The still-debated arrival date for these beads means one thing: more bead
> studies are needed to help map out overall and regional chronologies.
>
> Laurie Burgess
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
> [log in to unmask]
> Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2011 7:47 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: "Russian" faceted beads in the southeastern U.S.
>
> It is true that therse beads have been misleadingly used as prrof of
> Russian influences.   I believe I read somewhere in the distant past that
> they
> were actually made in the present Chech (?) Republic.
> They have been found at Hudson Bay Company sites and we even have a few
> from the California missions, so they were really international.   We have
> basically ignored the fact that native peoples had bead preferences which
> the
> Europeans needed to take into account if they wanted to conduct trade.   A
> question of "agency".
>
> Bob Hoover
>