Masters Theses

Date of Award

12-2018

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Major

Anthropology

Major Professor

Barbara J. Heath, Timothy E. Baumann

Committee Members

Gerald F. Schroedl

Abstract

Although glass beads are commonly found in historic records and on archaeological sites, there is still little known about the ways that Native American communities perceived, consumed, and used these items. Using historical and archaeological data, this thesis seeks to address this gap by examining the glass beads associated with the 18th-century Overhill Cherokee villages of Chota (40MR2) and Tanasee (40MR62). Examining the historical records for references to beads shines light on the ways that glass beads were put to use by Cherokee communities in diplomacy, trade, and adornment. In the process, glass beads were attached with a great deal of significance in communicating messages, expressing identities, and linking groups together.Turning to the archaeological data of beads located in mortuary contexts, I examine distributions of bead types across social groups based on age, biological sex, and burial location in order to identify patterns that provide information addressing the question of how glass beads were differentially associated with members of the villages of Chota and Tanasee. I find that, while there are informative aspects to a distributional analysis, beads cross-cut many of the traditionally examined social categories. I therefore argue for the use of Social Network Analysis (SNA) in reconsidering the data. SNA is based on a relational interpretation of the past which helps to consider the networks of interaction at the sites and to consider the processes which produced the observed patterns.Rather than returning to representationalist interpretations of identities and burials, I suggest that the burials practices were the product of nested identities and communities that linked together the living and the deceased in the materiality of interment. Glass beads were incorporated into this system and helped to connect groups and represent identities.

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