Tiny glass beads discovered in mountain caves about 25 miles from the shores of Lake Malawi in eastern-central Africa provide evidence that European trade in the continent’s hinterland was built on ...

A dynamic new “consumer class” emerging from Africa is attracting international attention. With the prospect of rising incomes and a young population, international consulting firms see the continent ...

Legend has it that, if a mountain man lost his horse, he always carried a chevron bead, so he could trade the bead for another horse. Although the story has never been documented, Steve McCracken uses ...

Unalaska History and Archaeology Project researchers excavated several thousand glass trade beads from an Aleutian longhouse at the Reese Bay site on Unalaska Island, Alaska. This paper provides a ...

Our ancestors swapped pieces of ostrich eggshell jewellery 30,000 years ago in the same way we trade social media likes, or friendship bracelets, archaeologists claim. The items — shell fragments with ...

A new study of European beads reveals the “extensive reach” of Native American trade networks in the 17th century. Image from the journal Antiquity European glass beads reached parts of North America ...

Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies, Vol. 46, Papers from the forty-seventh meeting of the Seminar for Arabian Studies held at the British Museum, London, 24 to 26 July 2015 (2016), pp. 1-8 ...

This media is in the public domain (free of copyright restrictions). You can copy, modify, and distribute this work without contacting the Smithsonian. For more information, visit the Smithsonian's ...

IIIF provides researchers rich metadata and media viewing options for comparison of works across cultural heritage collections. Visit the IIIF page to learn more. Beads have served as a medium of ...

These beautiful,heavy,red glass beads came from the Monument Valley Navajo Trading Post in Arizona but were originally made in Venice, Italy in the 1800's. For me, they are a tangible link with many ...