Glass Seed Beads

Glass Seed Beads

Artifacts

These traded beads come from an Early Historic period site in Roanoke County in the Blue Ridge region of west-central Virginia. They include shell, bone, and glass “seed” beads and a larger bone disk bead. Glass beads were introduced by Europeans into Native American exchange systems, which have placed value on copper and shell beads since the Middle Woodland period and possibly earlier. Virginia Indians used trade goods to navigate relationships with colonists during the early seventeenth century.

Virginia Department of Historic Resources, Richmond, VA

1600 - 1700 C.E.

.JPG, 572 × 448

Image

Montgomery County

Photograph

572 × 448