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Patterns In Glass : The Interpretation Of European Glass Trade Beads From Two Protohistoric Sites In The Greater Lower Columbia Region, Gretchen Anne Kaehler

Dissertations and Theses

The issue of social status as it manifests in the archaeological record has long been a problematic one. Glass beads are often the most numerous class of historic artifacts recovered in protohistoric sites in the Pacific Northwest. Ethnohistoric accounts indicated that these beads might have functioned as prestige items and as a form of "primitive cash" among the aboriginal peoples of the Lower Columbia River in the early to mid 1800s. To what extent were glass beads indicative of status and can their spatial distribution within protohistoric sites be used to address this question?

The purpose of the present study …