Origin of Beads

The Origin of Beads

Few of us ever pause to pay homage to what seems the simplest of artifacts, the familiar and ubiquitous bead, or to recognize its role in human history. Let us do so now.

During most of their 2.5 million years on earth, members of the genus homo were distinguished by their ability to fashion utilitarian stone tools. Although anatomically modern men (homo sapiens sapiens) had already evolved c. 100,000 years ago, migrating from Africa to Mediterranean Europe and eastern Asia, it was not until c. 35,000 years ago (Upper Paleolithic period) that evidence of a great cultural milestone, a new way of thinking, first appeared. The large quantities of objects found at European (Aurignacian) sites revealed a distinctly different use of materials, not as tools but as symbols. Beads, (made of soft stone, animal teeth, shell and the tusks of wooly mammoths) and carved figures and drawings had no other function but to make visible such invisible abstract concepts as relationships within and among groups, and between man and the mysterious forces of nature.

In the succeeding cultural period (Gravettian) long strands of beads adorned the dead and, we may presume, the living. Certain campsites indicated that they were trade and bead manufacturing centers, using materials from distant places. When, during the later (Neolithic) period (c. 10,000 years ago) nomadic hunters established permanent food-producing settlements, they exchanged goods and services over a wide area of the Mediterranean world. Beads, the rarer and more intricately made the more desirable, were naturally a major commodity for traders. By the time (c. 4,000 years ago) of the great organized civilizations in Mesopotamia, Egypt and India, full-time jewelers were demonstrating superb craftsmanship in the manufacture of beads to be used as amulets and status symbols, and in beadwork as collars, belts and other body adornments. Technical skills and new materials, such as faience and glass, continued to be developed, partly as substitutes for rarer gems such as lapis luzuli, and partly for their own beauty, and were important staples for export.

The semi-nomadic Germanic tribes who began to overrun Europe as the Roman Empire weakened also valued beads as amulets, indications of rank, and as portable wealth. Materials acquired by trade or raid were incorporated into their own brilliant abstract designs. Later, during the hegemony of the Christian era the use of mere adornment was frowned on, (although in other cultures on other continents bead-making continued to flourish). However, rosary beads as mnemonics for the illiterate continued to be made, and as time went on became ever more elaborate. In any case, magical thinking, such as the belief that amethysts could prevent drunkenness, could never by wholly eradicated. By the 15th century bead-making was again a thriving industry, with Venice the bead capitol of the world.

It is not surprising, then, that when Columbus set out for India he took along trade beads as a sort of universal currency. Those beads were not, as we may think, offerings from a superior civilization to a primitive people. Natives of the New World were no less sophisticated in the manufacture and use of beads than any other human group, and trade networks for beads long predated European contact. Shell beads were particularly prized - an 8,000 year-old string found in Nevada was made of shell from the California coast - and wampum (shell) was woven into belts as pictographs to commemorate treaties and other ceremonial occasions. Wampum as currency was still in use in North America in the early 18th century, as the only universally recognized valuable on the continent.

The rise of literacy has largely eliminated the need for beads to commemorate treaties, but as ritual objects, as fetishes and status symbols, and as decorative fashion jewelry, they continue to be valued. The great fortunes of the 19th century were often displayed by body ornaments such as the magnificent jewels and pearls worn by "society” women and Indian princes. In the 20th century the triumph of democratic principles was reflected in the development of mass market, frankly fake costume jewelry, from the cheapest to beautifully designed and crafted pieces for the more affluent.

There may be still, in some climates of opinion, a prejudice against “merely decorative” symbols of vanity, but, as any child stringing melon seeds and macaroni will tell you, bead-making is, like speaking, an ineradicable human activity.

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