Beads

Trade Tales and Tiny Trails: Glass Beads in the Kalahari Desert

Posted on July 8, 2019 by MAMcIntosh

Glass beads, more than any other type of artifact, help us make sense of the last 600 years of Kalahari history. The archaeological site of Khubu la Dintša in Botswana is littered with broken-down entranceways of mud and stone melted and slumped inwards on themselves: dirty, stacked lumpy piles defeated and retired from the seasonal[…]

The Significance of the Earliest Beads

Posted on March 8, 2019March 8, 2019 by MAMcIntosh

A key requisite for the use and appreciation of all beads and pendants is a level of hominin self-awareness that essentially expresses full cognitive modernity. Abstract This paper attempts to explore beyond the predictable and banal archaeological explanations relating to early beads and pendants. It recounts replication experiments to establish aspects of technology so as[…]