标题：Special Issue: Early Personal Ornaments --- Bead Making in Aboriginal Australia From the Deep Past to European Arrival: Materials, Methods, and Meanings
摘要：This paper reviews the raw materials used by Indigenous Australians to make beads. It includes beads recovered
from archaeological sites, as well as beads collected before 1940 held in museum collections, and those that are
described in pre-1940 literature and other archival material. All three sources of information indicate that people
were highly selective in their choice of materials for bead production and that availability and abundance only
partly determined selection. Grass and reeds, the most widespread material represented in the museum and historic
sources, if used in pre-European times, have not been preserved in archaeological sites. Beads made of highly
iridescent or luminous shells, that historic sources suggest were regarded as imbued with powerful properties,
were selected over other, more abundant colorful or patterned shells. Teeth of large macropod species were more
commonly used than any other mammals despite other species being more readily available. On the other hand,
dingo teeth, which were just as large and more robust than macropod teeth, were very rarely used, and this seems
surprising given dingoes’ ubiquitous presence in Aboriginal society. As dog teeth were commonly used as beads
in personal adornments by Melanesian people in Papua New Guinea, and the teeth of now locally extinct dogsized
carnivores are found as beads in archaeological contexts, we suggest that the lack of dog teeth beads may
reflect the high status of dogs in Aboriginal societies. Although the Australian archaeological bead assemblage is
small, comparison with the historically documented beads indicates that the choice of raw material has remained
relatively constant for thousands of years. The historical sources also describe human teeth and other bone relics
as being worn as pendants for protection for the wearer. However these are often unmodified, being suspended
by resin or other non-destructive techniques. This has implications for isolated human skeletal parts found in
archaeological contexts.
This special issue is guest-edited by Daniella E. Bar-Yosef Mayer (Steinhardt Museum of Natural History and
Institute of Archaeology, Tel Aviv University) and Marjolein D. Bosch (McDonald Institute for Archaeological
Research, University of Cambridge). This is article #10 of 12.
