| Original Message: Re: Dating South-east Asian beads |
|---|
|
Hi Jamey, Yes, you're right to point out the human tendency to try to push dates of origin ever earlier. I have to plead guilty to doing it myself. But Peter's dating may prove to be quite realistic, even cautious. The earliest date so far for glass beads in S-E Asia seems to be from a Sa Huynh culture site near what is now Ho Chi Minh City, where several radiocarbon dates of around 400BCE have been established. The beads were found in association with a lot of carnelian, agate, jade, garnet and rock crystal beads that appears to be largely exotic, though the lead archaeologist Nguyen Kim Dung argues that a substantial number (not the glass ones) may have been manufactured locally. His findings were published in 1995 in Vietnamese, and later on there was an English summary in the Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association. Further inland, away from the sea routes that went around the south-eastern tip of Asia, there are more and more dates for glass beads around the 300 BCE time slot (including at Ban Chiang - I was wrong about 500 BCE). That coincides with the onset of the Iron Age in SE Asia, which produced huge social changes in the distribution of power and the concentration of wealth and occupations, enabling certain people to invest in ostentatious jewellery. The same old story! A date for the beginnings of glass bead manufacture in the area still seems to be elusive, and one of the problems is that none of the main archaeologists working there seem to be primarily interested in beads. Unlike, say, Kenoyer in the Indus Valley. Incidentally, I'm so sorry to hear that Peter stood in the way of the publication of your work on Javanese beads. That's disgusting. Is it available now? Would it be possible to link it to the articles section of the Forum? I'd very much like to read it, and I'm sure others would, too. Best regards, Will
All rights reserved by Bead Collector Network and its users |
|
|