the question itself is unusual, be prepared for some weird answers!
When I first started collecting beads there were very few books on beads and the ones available were hard to find. The Fenstermaker series comes to mind as one of the first booklets I found as well as the Canadian book on beads, Classification and Nomenclature of Beads and Pendants....... I remember finding this forum years after I started collecting, (actually thinking I was weird because there weren't any collectors around my area or so I thought).....anyway I focused on several bead types that I found interesting and worth my time and set out to find out all I could, this led me to form my own opinions on many things about bead history that were eventually proven wrong or correct as the case may be......so in my beholder's eye, I formulated some theories on bead history and some I got from books and eventually from personal interaction with the "experts"........

Really Fred, History is. The eye of the beholder wanders, is subjective and has many loci.
The answer then. would be. Zero extent
Fake history like the notion of bead names like Lewis and Clark resides in the various minds and eyes of various beholders. This might be fun but it ain't history. Apples and Aardvarks

From my perspective, the "history" of a bead is an immutable fact. It has nothing to do with the beholder's views.

Now that said, we rarely know a bead's full history. We only glimpse various facets of the Platonic truth, and from those glimpses we construct a model that approximates the bead's true history. As the quote goes, "all models are wrong, but some are useful."

So put me firmly in the camp that the bead has an independent factual history which may be obscured by the viewer, but remains fact. I'm reminded of Donald Rumsfeld's wonder quote about known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns. I feel like every bead has both a known history, a history that we know we don't know, and then a secret history that will probably never be known and that we don't even know about.

Whew. Abe @ Beadstore.com

If you, Fredo, allow to speak my mind, I would like to add my (hopefully encouraging) three Cents too:

The history of beads - like any other history - is one of many facets - geographically, socially, psychologically etc. It all depends who's history is meant. That of the maker, the dealer, the collector, the researcher, the writer and others. History is never and can never be the ultimate and universal truth.

Most people do not read, do not research and are not really interested in the deeper truth of things - beads or not. People seem to cared less and less about the various aspects of history!

Instead they look at photos, follow the sermon of the media and assumed "authorities". People like to have it easy and do not take the highroad to find answers.

All that - and more - leads to a superficial idea of things, or beads, in this case. Millefioris turn into "Milles", Muraqat are "Kiffa Beads" and Perla Fiorato are "Wedding Cakes". The list is endless. Understandable? Yes. Helpful? Not really.

Though this is just the superficial part of a history-made-up, it is nevertheless telling.

Of course we know major parts of the history of beads. Do we know all about it? Of course not! That will and cannot ever be the case. We are left to use theories or hypothesises to connect the dots. Unfortunately many fill the blank spots with hearsay, made-up facts, and naive assumptions that seems to help folks to rationalize.

To sum it up I like to freely quote the poster "Beadstore.com" who righteously stated that history should be based on facts and has, or should have, NOTHING to do with anybody's personal view!

Beauty can be in the eye of the beholder - history cannot (leave alone your question is an "unusual one" in the first place, as Tasart righteously claims)!

History are facts - Beauty or an aestetic appreciation is a riddle of philosophy!