Abstract
Glass trade beads, because of their frequency of occurrence at historic sites, and because of the culturally prescribed manner in which they were utilized by Indian groups, should be an artifact type with considerable temporal and cultural interpretive potential in historic archaeology. Two approaches, ethnohistoric and archaeological, are advocated here as means of maximizing the interpretive potential of beads. Both approaches can contribute to the formalization of descriptive methods as an initial step in the analysis of beads, rendering bead samples from different sites comparable. In the following pages an exploration of both the ethnohistoric and archaeological approaches is presented in an effort to demonstrate the potential of trade beads in historic sites archaeology and to stimulate more intensive and extensive trade bead research.
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