GLASS BEADS AND PRE-EUROPEAN TRADE IN THE SHASHE-LIMPOPO REGION

Master of Arts - ArtsDuring the Islamic period (8th to 15th centuries) glass beads are the most abundant evidence of international trade in southern Africa. Archaeologists, however, have underutilized them because they are small, monochrome and difficult to categorize. I show they can be divided into identifiable series that have temporal parameters. Once identified, the beads can help interpret site chronology as well as regional and international interaction. Glass beads are also useful in reconstructing trade patterns in the Indian Ocean. Present perceptions concerning Islamic period trade to eastern and southern Africa are based largely on Islamic ceramics and Arab documents. Thus, it is generally believed that trade to southern Africa was an extension of the East Coast monsoon-driven trade that was conducted mainly by local mariners familiar with the difficult conditions in the Mozambique Channel. Comparison of glass bead assemblages from eastern and southern Africa, however, shows that it is unlikely the beads reaching the south were traded through ports to the north. Based on distribution patterns and recent chemical analyses, I propose they were arriving directly from South and/or Southeast Asia

Divergent patterns in Indian Ocean trade to East Africa and southern Africa between the 7th and 17th centuries CE: The glass bead evidence

Glass beads form a large part of archaeological evidence attesting to Indian Ocean trade with eastern Africa between the 7th and 17th century CE, but they have generally been under-utilized by archaeologists in their efforts to understand and interpret that trade. Research in the past decade has identified seven bead series that were present in southern Africa during this time span, and chemical analysis has opened windows on the origins of the glasses used to make the beads. Together they facilitate the recreation of the changing trade patterns that will be explored here. In addition, the differences between the bead assemblages found on the northern and southern ends of the coast and the interior demonstrate that the two regions appear to have had different trade relations. The beads suggest that trade, or at least the trade in beads, to the south was never completely controlled by the north and at times may have been quite separate

Interconnections : Glass beads and trade in southern and eastern Africa and the Indian Ocean - 7th to 16th centuries AD

Glass beads comprise the most frequently found evidence of trade between southern Africa and the greater Indian Oceanbetween the 7th and 16th centuries AD.  In this thesis beads recovered from southern African archaeological sites are organized into series, based on morphology and chemical composition determined by LA-ICP-MS analysis.  The results are used to interpret the trade patterns and partners that linked eastern Africa to the rest of the Indian Ocean world, as well as interconnections between southern Africa andEast Africa.   Comprehensive reports on bead assemblages from several archaeological sites are presented, including: Mapungubwe, K2 and Schroda in the Shashe-Limpopo Basin; Chibuene in southern Mozambique; Hlamba Mlonga in eastern Zimbabwe; Sibudu Cave in KwaZulu-Natal, Kaole Ruins in Tanzania and Mahilaka in northwest Madagascar.  The conclusions reached show that trade relationships and socio-political development in the south were different from those on the East Coast and that changes in bead series in the south demonstrate it was fully integrated into the cycles of the Eurasian and African world-system

Interconnections : Glass beads and trade in southern and eastern Africa and the Indian Ocean - 7th to 16th centuries AD

Glass beads comprise the most frequently found evidence of trade between southern Africa and the greater Indian Oceanbetween the 7th and 16th centuries AD.  In this thesis beads recovered from southern African archaeological sites are organized into series, based on morphology and chemical composition determined by LA-ICP-MS analysis.  The results are used to interpret the trade patterns and partners that linked eastern Africa to the rest of the Indian Ocean world, as well as interconnections between southern Africa andEast Africa.   Comprehensive reports on bead assemblages from several archaeological sites are presented, including: Mapungubwe, K2 and Schroda in the Shashe-Limpopo Basin; Chibuene in southern Mozambique; Hlamba Mlonga in eastern Zimbabwe; Sibudu Cave in KwaZulu-Natal, Kaole Ruins in Tanzania and Mahilaka in northwest Madagascar.  The conclusions reached show that trade relationships and socio-political development in the south were different from those on the East Coast and that changes in bead series in the south demonstrate it was fully integrated into the cycles of the Eurasian and African world-system

Glass Beads from Songo Mnara, Tanzania : Chemical Composition and Evidence for Local Bead Manufacture

The fourteenth-to-sixteenth-century AD site of Songo Mnara, in the Kilwa archipelago in southern Tanzania, is a stone town with many standing coral buildings. Extensive excavations at the site have produced over 9,000 beads, 7,444 of which are glass. A subset of 140 of these was chemically analyzed using laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry, revealing a notably diverse assemblage that included four main glass types: mineral soda-high alumina (m-Na-Al), vegetable soda-high alumina (v-Na-Al), high lead glasses, and vegetable soda-lime (v-Na-Ca) glass. Here we present these types, giving the first tightly dated assemblage for the fifteenth-century coast. We then focus on two notable features of the assemblage. Among the high-lead glass beads are two types from China: one dates to the early fifteenth century and the other from about 1600. These later Chinese beads were accompanied by some of the earliest European beads (v-Na-Ca) found in eastern Africa. Their provenance and meaning are examined. Then, we discuss large folded beads that were decorated with trails of colored glass. Such beads have been recorded only at Songo Mnara and Kilwa Kisiwani, and we suggest they may have been made locally from imported v-Na-Al glass

Laser Ablation ICP-MS of African Glass Trade Beads

Albuquerque, US

Chemical analysis, chronology, and context of a European glass bead assemblage from Garumele, Niger

Garumele, also known as Wudi, in the Republic of Niger, is reputed to have been a capital of the Kanem Borno ‘empire’ and was visited by various European travelers in the 19th century. However, despite historical documents and a few radiocarbon dates, its date of settlement and occupation remain unclear. Forty-four of a morphologically very varied assemblage of 106 glass beads recovered during excavations were chemically analyzed using LA-ICP-MS. There were two main objectives for these analyses: first, to clarify the chronology of occupation, and secondly to gain an insight into the nature and extent of the connections of its inhabitants with the wider world. Comparisons with both the chemistry and morphology of other published bead assemblages indicate that all the beads are of European origin, probably Venetian and/or Dutch, and that most belong to the later 17th or 18th centuries