Not Just for Show: The Archaeology of Beads, Beadwork, and Personal Ornaments

Daniella Bar-Yosef Mayer · Alice M. Choyke

Aug. 2017 · Oxbow Books

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Beads, beadwork, and personal ornaments are made of diverse materials such as shell, bone, stones, minerals, and composite materials. Their exploration from geographical and chronological settings around the world offers a glimpse at some of the cutting edge research within the fast growing field of personal ornaments in humanities’ past. Recent studies are based on a variety of analytical procedures that highlight humankind’s technological advances, exchange networks, mortuary practices, and symbol-laden beliefs. Papers discuss the social narratives behind bead and beadwork manufacture, use and disposal; the way beads work visually, audibly and even tactilely to cue wearers and audience to their social message(s). Understanding the entangled social and technical aspects of beads require a broad spectrum of technical and methodological approaches including the identification of the sources for the raw material of beads. These scientific approaches are also combined in some instances with experimentation to clarify the manner in which beads were produced and used in past societies.

Autoren-Profil

Daniella E. Bar-Yosef Mayer is an associate of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University and collections manager for palaeontology at the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History at Tel Aviv University. She is a zooarchaeologist specialising in molluscs from archaeological sites.

Alice M. Choyke is associate Professor in the Medieval Studies Department at the Central European University, Budapest. She has worked for most of her professional life as a zooarchaeologist specialising in worked osseous materials and especially the impact of raw material choices from prehistoric, proto-historic and historic sites in Europe