Native American Trade Beads? #2

[Old Pueblo]

Found these glass beads on an old ranch here in Southern AZ, that dates back to the mid to late 1800s or so. Anyway, there is this garbage dump, one main area, and then a fairly large area of ground around it where you can see little bits of purple glass shards and white pottery and tins and stuff like that here and there. There is also some Native American stuff mixed in, including these beads. The red pottery sherds you see in the last photo are common finds at any old place around here, and may be from the old O'odham pottery trade from the late 1800s into the early 1900s a bit. The O'odham still traded for pottery and beads into the early 1900s around here, but I also found the scraper you see nearby, so that makes me think this ranch and garbage dump may have been established on top of an old Indian village site or something, and that the red pottery sherds could be from the villagers, and not from the pottery trade. Red pottery has been made like that for hundreds of years out here, and the way I tell the difference between older stuff and the more modern c.1900 stuff from the pottery trade is by where I find it. This dump is along a wash, coming out of the mountains, and thats where you find a lot of the old Indian sites, along the water or where there used to be water. But its also the site of a ranch, so theres a chance it could be from the more recent pottery trade too.

Hopefully I havent bored any of you too much with all that. Anyway, Ive never found any potential trade beads quite like these, so Id be interested in hearing anybody elses thoughts.


These are some photos of some other NA trade beads for comparison, and I think I have a match on the blue one.



Venetian Fur Trade Beads from the 1700s


Trade beads from Texas, said to be "surface finds" like mine


A bunch of other trade beads. The green one looks like it could be one of the ones at the top right.


Cobalt Blue trade beads from Oregon, which are very obviously ground down around the ends like my blue one. Im not sure, but I think these are more beads from Venice.



Trade beads from Alabama.

What do you guys think? Trade beads?

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Upgraded Night Vision Monocular Digital Infrared Monocular Telescope for 100% Darkness with 8X Zoom - Grab it through Amazon!

[Old Pueblo]

This thing here shows a bunch of more trade beads and mentions how the French used to trade these beads for deer and buffalo hides, horses and Apache slaves, which is interesting since there were Apaches all over this part of southern Arizona.
.
https://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/tejas/fundamentals/images/trade-beads.html

 

[Old Pueblo]

My blue bead was filled with dirt like you see in some of the others, and if you look closely you can see bubbles, some swirling from when it was made and some other imperfections like nicks and scratches I think it is. Otherwise it appears to be in pretty good shape. You can also see where it was ground smooth around the holes.

 

[Old Pueblo]

Heres some more surface finds from Oklahoma:



It looks like there are some plain round blue ones mixed in there.

 

[mn9000]

I've never seen a rivet with a manufacturers stamp on it. Can you make out what it says? SP CO maybe?

 

[Old Pueblo]

LS & Co Or something like that. For Levi Strauss

 

[IAMZIM]

That green bead in the first pic? I found one of those exact color this spring! Really cool! I found a blue oblong bead last year, but when I posted it I didn't get any feed back on it and can't seem to find anything similar online.....

 

[rock]

Ive been looking for a bead but so far havent found much of anything drilled in my area. Those are great

 

[Old Pueblo]

Ive been looking for a bead but so far havent found much of anything drilled in my area. Those are great

They are not very common finds anymore, I dont think. At least not for surface finds. The archaeologists still dig this stuff all the time. Same with arrowheads and the really colorful pottery sherds. I thinks its just because its 2017, and there are a lot of people who have been coming across this stuff for a lot of years, picking up a piece or two as they pass through. My grandmother and parents used to tell me about the stuff they used to see years and years ago, that were very common finds, but nowadays difficult. Things like clay marbles glass bottle stoppers and stuff like that. The more colorful it is, the more likely someone is going to see it and pick it up. And Im still not entirely convinced these are really trade beads, because of where I found them. But I know others have found the real thing in the same kind of place. (Along a wash on a ranch).

 

[Old Pueblo]

And the reason why pottery sherds are often broken to tiny little bits is because of the cattle, which has been stomping all over the Western states for hundreds of years now. Back in time it used to be very common to find large decorated pieces and whole pots and so forth. Ive even heard of people finding whole stuff today, usually after heavy rains have exposed part of it.

 

[joshuaream]

Cool beads. I know just enough about them to usually put my foot in my mouth.

From my experience with beads, the really early dates are valid for some sites around contact period. (English, Dutch, French along the east coast, Spanish in Florida, Texas, and into your area with missions, Russians in Alaska and the Pacific NW.) But many common styles extended for a long time in California, parts of the SW, and on the Plains where groups used beads for a lot longer.

The little green seed bead is 1840's in some areas, but the same beads were still be used well into the 1940's on reservations for tourist trade items. I think the Hudson Bay Company still sells them made on the same equipment in the same factory as they were made 150+ years ago. (Instead of furs, the Hudson Bay Company has evolved into owning a chain of department stores in Canada called The Bay and Saks fifth Avenue in the US.)

The blue beads are Venetian in some areas, Russian blues in other areas, but the reality is they cobalt blue beads were made pretty continuously from the 1700's through the late 1800's.

 

[coosakid]

Pretty cool.... I've never found any beads or jewelry around here... How did you get the bama beads

Sent from my Z799VL using Tapatalk

 

[Carolina Tom]

As a young man, I hunted for points in a creek. There was a lot of pottery shards in the creek too. We would find those blue glass beads, as well as several other varieties of beads. We called them "Indian beads" because we were told that's what they were... I guess trade beads is more appropriate a term.

Congrats sir!

 

[creekhunter]

Very cool finds and great read, I would vote trade beads as well!

 

[bill_wabo]

Never saw this much in a find, pretty cool finds and thanks for sharing.

 

[Riverbum]

Hello,
I my studies I have read that Natives would be willing to trade their squaws for a bag of blue beads. I'm not sure why blue ones though......

 

[Old Pueblo]

Cool beads. I know just enough about them to usually put my foot in my mouth.

From my experience with beads, the really early dates are valid for some sites around contact period. (English, Dutch, French along the east coast, Spanish in Florida, Texas, and into your area with missions, Russians in Alaska and the Pacific NW.) But many common styles extended for a long time in California, parts of the SW, and on the Plains where groups used beads for a lot longer.

The little green seed bead is 1840's in some areas, but the same beads were still be used well into the 1940's on reservations for tourist trade items. I think the Hudson Bay Company still sells them made on the same equipment in the same factory as they were made 150+ years ago. (Instead of furs, the Hudson Bay Company has evolved into owning a chain of department stores in Canada called The Bay and Saks fifth Avenue in the US.)

The blue beads are Venetian in some areas, Russian blues in other areas, but the reality is they cobalt blue beads were made pretty continuously from the 1700's through the late 1800's.

That is some very valuable info. Thank you very much. I dont know much about trade beads so its great to learn more.

 

[Old Pueblo]

Thats sounds amazing. Do you still have any of those old beads?

 

[Old Pueblo]

Pretty cool.... I've never found any beads or jewelry around here... How did you get the bama beads

Sent from my Z799VL using Tapatalk

Im not sure what you mean? Bama bead? I found them on the ground, the color of them caught my eye.

 

[Old Pueblo]

According to this thing, the Russian trade beads were hand faceted, and the round ones you see there are modern czech beads put in between the old Russian beads for protection. And it looks like that pile of beads in the photo from Oklahoma are Russian. But after looking at it again, I dont see any round blue ones in that photo like I thought I saw before. Just wanted to say so, my mistake. But if these Russian beads have been found in Oklahoma, could it be possible some ended up in Arizona as well?

What are Blue Russian Trade Beads?