Chemical analysis of glass beads in Palau, western Micronesia reveals 19th century inter-island exchange systems in transition
Introduction
Beads made from materials such as glass, shell, and stone have played important roles in exchange systems across the Indo-Pacific for thousands of years (Adhyatman and Arifin, 1993, Allen et al., 1997, Carter et al., 2016a, Clark et al., 2018, Francis, 2002, Malinowski, 1922, Szabó, 2010, Turbitt, 2003). In Near and Remote Oceania, beads and other portable objects have been studied as a way to understand long-distance exchange networks between people living on islands which are sometimes separated by thousands of kilometers of open-ocean (e.g., Burley and Freeland, 2019, Clark et al., 2018, Szabó, 2010). In Palau, an archipelago in western Micronesia (northwestern tropical Pacific), oral traditions and ethnographic accounts describe how glass money beads (udoud) were used as a medium of exchange and were an integral part of traditional exchange systems. Udoud were used in economic transactions between individuals, exchanged with families or clans during events like weddings and funerals, and typically worn by women around their neck (Ballendorf, 1991, Krämer, 1926, Kubary, 1873, Kubary, 1895, Semper, 1873). Udoud are still exchanged in non-economic transactions and worn today, demonstrating their continued importance in Palauan society. Udoud are not, and were not, a form of currency in the strict sense that there is a standard value per bead; but during shortages, beads would be sliced into smaller units to make more money available for exchange (Krämer, 1926). However, udoud meets the criteria of money as defined by economic theorists because it is a medium of exchange, has a store of value, and a measure of value (e.g., Davies, 2002, Fitzpatrick and McKeon, 2020:11). Understanding the classification and value of udoud is complicated as the context in which they are exchanged, individual bead life-histories (pedigrees), and the general availability of beads all could influence their value. In addition, ethnographic and historic accounts describe pervasive secrecy around udoud as the types and quantities owned by clans are closely guarded secrets. Finally, the well-documented production and exchange of counterfeit udoud adds an additional layer of complexity in the understanding of these valuables and the circumstances in which they were exchanged.
Despite their long-term importance in Palauan society, the provenance of udoud remains fairly murky (Ballendorf, 1993, Dupont, 2018a, Force, 1959, Francis, 2002, Osborne, 1966). Archaeological evidence demonstrates that Palau has been continuously inhabited since people first arrived from somewhere in southeast Asia ca. 3000 years ago (e.g., Clark, 2005, Clark et al., 2006, Fitzpatrick, 2003a, Fitzpatrick, 2003b, Fitzpatrick, 2003c, Fitzpatrick and Jew, 2018, Montenegro et al., 2016, Stone, 2020, Stone et al., 2017). But it was millennia later when two different waves of beads were apparently introduced to Palau. The "first wave" of udoud may have been brought around AD 600–950, with some varieties possibly arriving as early as AD 200. These include three distinct types: Indo-Pacific beads (likely from mainland Southeast Asia), cut and drilled sections of glass bracelets (possibly manufactured in China), and numerous varieties of beads manufactured in East Java (Francis, 1997, Francis, 2002:189; Osborne, 1966). These latter varieties are highly distinctive and, outside of East Java, are only found in great number in Palau. Francis (2002:136) suggests that this co-occurrence (and great abundance) indicates that they must have been introduced directly by traders from East Java during the same era they were being manufactured (i.e., AD 600–950). It has also been suggested that Palauans could have acquired beads through sporadic trade with Chinese junk ships that were thought to travel in the region (Krämer, 1926), although evidence in support of this scenario is lacking.
The supply of first-wave beads into Palau appears to have been relatively fixed until later when Yapese islanders arrived in Palau to carve their large stone money disks (rai in Yapese, balang in Palauan), and introduced glass beads and other valuables from Yap and exchanged them to gain access to quarry sites and to purchase supplies (Fitzpatrick, 2003b, Fitzpatrick, 2008), representing the "second wave" of beads introduced to Palau. The lengthy process of gaining access to quarries, carving stone money disks, and transporting them across open-ocean to Yap filled with challenging winds and currents (which were, incidentally, the heaviest portable objects every transported over water by Pacific Islanders), would have taken months or even years to complete (Hazell and Fitzpatrick, 2006). It is well known that these objects were extremely important in Yapese society for centuries and are still highly valued to this day (de Beauclair, 1963a, Fitzpatrick and McKeon, 2020, Furness, 1910). After centuries of a fixed supply of beads, the introduction of a new supply of udoud from Yap would undoubtedly have created a high demand for these new pieces. Beads in this second wave seem to have been able to enter this closed system because: 1) they included the same varieties of beads already circulating in Palau (de Beauclair, 1961, de Beauclair, 1962, de Beauclair, 1963b); and 2) some Palauan oral traditions have long credited Yap as the source for udoud. Their introduction could have also influenced the value of other udoud that have been in circulation for centuries.
Establishing when stone money production began is difficult as only three quarry sites have been excavated to date, and quarrying activities resulted in complex stratigraphic deposition and reworking, and in some sites led to the movement of large amounts of limestone debitage (Fitzpatrick, 2001). Radiocarbon data, oral traditions, and ethnohistorical accounts demonstrate that quarrying likely began at least 400 years ago prior to the arrival of Europeans to Palau when British Captain Henry Wilson ran his packet ship the Antelope aground at Ulong Island in 1783 and the permanent arrival of missionaries to Yap’s outer islands in the 19th century (Fitzpatrick, 2002, Hezel, 1983). This tentatively places the second wave introduction of udoud into the late Stonework Village Era (ca. 700–150 BP). However, precisely when the second wave of beads were first introduced to Palau is unclear, as is how the Yapese came into their possession. As quarrying activity increased after the establishment of European trading and mining operations in Palau in the mid- to late-19th century, so did the presence of other high-valued items such a metal tools (Fitzpatrick, 2008, Fitzpatrick et al., 2006). During this time, the Yapese may have acquired beads through direct trade with Europeans or as a result of Captain David Dean O’Keefe’s enterprise transporting stone money disks between Palau and Yap in exchange for bêche-de-mer (sea cucumber) and copra (dried coconut meat), which he sold in East Asian markets (Fitzpatrick, 2008, Morgan, 1996). Yet Yapese oral traditions appear to describe the same East Java or mainland Southeast Asian beads already in circulation in Palau in addition to beads that may have been obtained from Europeans (de Beauclair, 1963b).
To examine these provenance issues, we conducted compositional analysis of glass beads from Palau that were recovered with food refuse and evidence for stone money quarrying activities at the multicomponent site of Chelechol ra Orrak to help understand when and where the beads were manufactured and establish when quarrying activity took place. The site is notable as a Yapese stone money quarry and for containing one of the earliest cemeteries in Remote Oceania (ca. 3000–1800 cal BP) (Fitzpatrick, 2003a, Fitzpatrick and Jew, 2018, Nelson and Fitzpatrick, 2005, Stone, 2020). Chelechol ra Orrak is also the only stone money quarry site where glass beads have been recovered, and so these artifacts provide a unique opportunity to anchor the site’s chronology using the beads as terminus post quem (TPQ) markers. This is important because establishing the chronology at quarry sites can be difficult given mixing and/or subtle changes of some stratigraphic contexts within the site. In addition, radiocarbon dates that are associated with activities that occurred within the past few hundred years, when calibrated, do not provide a reliable estimate of when these took place. However, stratigraphic and artifactual evidence (e.g., limestone quarrying debitage) suggests that they are associated mostly or exclusively with quarrying activity (Fitzpatrick, 2003b, Fitzpatrick, 2003c, Fitzpatrick, 2008).
Section snippets
Environmental and archaeological background
The Palauan archipelago comprises hundreds of islands with varying lithologies, including volcanic, coralline uplifted limestone, platform-reef, and atolls aligned in a southwest–northeast orientation. The two largest islands of Babeldaob and Koror are primarily volcanic rock and surrounded by smaller uplifted coralline limestone islands colloquially known as the ‘Rock Islands’. Surrounding the central islands is a barrier reef that protects a productive lagoon habitat. Palau is divided into 16
Typological analysis
The 38 glass beads recovered from Orrak were analyzed using standard glass bead typological conventions (Beck, 1928, Francis, 2002, Karklins, 1982, Karklins, 2012, Kidd and Kidd, 1970). Method of manufacture (e.g., drawn, wound), construction (e.g., simple, compound, complex), decoration, finishing technique (e.g., heat rounded, faceted), shape, color, diaphaneity, and size (length and diameter) were all recorded. When possible, Kidd and Kidd (1970) type-variety numbers were also assigned to
Results
Table 2 reports the complete typological analysis of the Orrak glass bead assemblage, including assignment to compositional group (Fig. 3). Complete elemental results are reported in Supplemental Table 1. The glass bead assemblage excavated at Orrak can be divided into two main compositional groups, with five additional beads having unique compositions (Fig. 4).
The largest group (n = 28) has a lead-potash composition (Pb-K), with PbO content ranging from 26.4% to 57.9% and K2O ranging from 3.1%
Chronology and origins
The bead assemblage recovered archaeologically from Orrak is notable for the ubiquity of European, primarily Bohemian, types. Several of these (i.e., the drawn Bohemian varieties manufactured from K-Ca glass) are well known in the bead literature and are the only type that can be considered a clear temporal marker (Fig. 3B, 3D, 3O). Beads of this type—often erroneously called “Russian” beads in North America—were not manufactured until ca. AD 1820 (Blair, 2018, Francis, 1994, Ross, 1997). One
Conclusions
Like other types of “currency” or exchange valuables in traditional societies, Palauan money beads were highly valued and used in a variety of different social transactions for obtaining goods or services. People from Yap negotiated access to stone money quarries by offering highly-valued glass beads, corvée labor, and marriage partners while using less valuable glass beads to purchase supplies. Despite participating in multiple overlapping long-distance exchange networks, the Yapese used glass
Funding sources
This work was supported, in part, by a National Science Foundation grant to Fitzpatrick (SBR-0001531).
Author contributions
MFN, EHB, and SMF conceived the study, EHB and LD conducted the analyses, MFN, EHB, and SMF wrote the paper; EHB and LD wrote the Methods section.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
We thank Sunny Ngirmang, Calvin Emesiochel, Tamael Klouchelad, Linda Tellames, and the staff of the Palau Bureau of Historic Preservation for their assistance in excavation at Orrak over the years and in helping us find references used in this research. Sylvia Kloulubak and Alison Carter provided helpful comments on the manuscript. Jolie Liston provided excavation reports from Ngermid village, Koror. Jeff Pantaleo kindly provided unpublished excavation reports from Ngerielb village, Koror. We
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