Major Bead Types/Varieties
This paper will present and analyze graphically the association among the glass bead types/varieties. The accuracy of that analysis depends upon having a large enough feature sample to represent the bead type/variety. Table 3 provides information about the features relative to the number of exclusive and single features. At this point, we will introduce a term - major bead types/varieties. For the sake of discussion, major bead types/varieties are the fields that occurred in at least six features without exclusives or singles and that represent a significant amount of the bead population.
Thirteen major bead fields meet this definition. Each major bead type/variety will be graphed with hope of demonstrating a glass bead sequence that may be dated.
Glass Bead Chronology - Start/Finish
The object of the glass bead sequence is developing a chronology. Two key dates are needed for the chronology, a start date for sustained trade and a finish date or the date when the villages were abandoned.
Our interest is the start of trade. Paper 1 established a sustained trade date of 1690. That was the date selected when the Carolina plantation owners/slavers could sustain a trade. Paper 1 noted that the Chickasaw started leaving their villages in 1797, which were almost abandoned by 1805. For use in this paper, the sustained date of trade will be assumed as 1690 and the abandonment of the villages as 1800. These dates will serve to focus the start and stop of our bead chronology.