Archaeologists have found Venetian glass beads at three prehistoric Eskimo sites in Alaska. In the absence of trans-Atlantic communications, the most likely route these artifacts traveled from Europe to northwest Alaska was across Eurasia and across the Bering Strait. This is the first documented case of the presence of indisputable European materials on prehistoric sites in the western hemisphere due to land transport across the Eurasian continent.
Venetian glass beads found in northern Alaska. Image credit: Kunz & Mills, doi: 10.1017 / aaq.2020.100
Archaeologists often find ‘trade beads’ at archeological sites dating between 1550 and 1750 CE in the Caribbean Islands, the east coast of Central and North America and the eastern region of the Great Lakes.
Europeans and others have created glass beads using technologies that do not exist in indigenous cultures.
Explorers carried them to trade with native people they encountered. The Dutchman Peter Minuit included trade beads in his 1626 agreement for Manhattan Island.
Dr. Mike Kunz of the University of Alaska Museum of the North and Bureau of Land Management archaeologist Dr. Robin Mills found at least ten glass beads at Punyik Point and two other archeological sites in Alaska.
‘Punyik Point, a mile from the Continental Divide in the Brooks Range, is uninhabited today. It was a seasonal camp for generations of Eskimos in the interior, ‘said Dr. Kunz said.
“Punyik Point was on ancient trade routes from the Bering Sea to the Arctic Ocean, and was probably a reliable place to hunt caribou while the animals moved in the fall and spring.”
“And if the caribou for some reason do not migrate through where you have been, Punyik Point has excellent trout and large shrub-willow spots.”
Together with the dating of the Alaska carbon wire and charcoal found near the beads, the researchers thought the glass beads arrived at Punyik Point sometime between 1440 and 1480.
A possible route from small glass beads from the city of Venice to prehistoric homes in northern Alaska. Image Credit: Kunz & Mills, doi: 10.1017 / aaq.2020.100.
“How did the beads make their way from the canals of Venice to a plateau in the Brooks Range?” they said.
‘In the 1400s, merchants in the city-state of Venice traded with people throughout Asia. The beads may have traveled east by horse-drawn carriage along Silk Road in the direction of China. ‘
“From there, these early Venetian beads found their way into the native interior, and some migrated to the Far East.”
‘After the big trip, a trader stopped the beads in his kayak on the western shore of the Bering Sea. Then he dipped his paddle and passed on to the New World, today’s Alaska. The intersection of Bering Street at its narrowest is about 84 km (52 miles) open ocean. ”
According to scientists, the beads in Alaska probably arrived at an old trading center called Shashalik, north of present-day Kotzebue and just west of Noatak.
“From there, people on foot, perhaps with a few dogs, carried them deep into the Brooks Range,” they said.
“Someone at Punyik Point would have strapped the exotic blue beads into a necklace they lost or left behind when they walked away.”
“The tiny blue balls have been resting for centuries at the entrance of an underground house north of the Arctic Circle, waiting to be found.”
The team’s report was published in the journal American Antiquity.
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Michael L. Kunz & Robin O. Mills. A pre-Columbian presence of Venetian glass beads in Arctic Alaska. American Antiquity, Published January 20, 2021 online; doi: 10.1017 / aaq.2020.100
This article is based on text provided by the University of Alaska Fairbanks.