A Bead Too Far: Rethinking Global Connections Before Columbus(peterfrankopan.substack.com)
peterfrankopan.substack.com
A Bead Too Far: Rethinking Global Connections Before Columbus
https://peterfrankopan.substack.com/p/a-bead-too-far-rethinking-global
16 comments
We also have some circumstantial evidence that trade across the Bering strait was very limited or non-existent in that it didn't appear to introduce Eurasian diseases to North America.
Correct, the Bering Strait and North Atlantic before the age of sail permitted only low-bandwidth exchange between Eurasia and the Americas, due to the low population densities and harsh low-resource environments at those northern latitudes.
Seems plausible to me that beads could’ve reached the Americas before Columbus, although the dates seem AWFULLY close to Columbus. Error bars on measurements like this seem like they almost certainly overlap 1492. +/- 30 years (or more) seems pretty typical for that age of sample. https://radiocarbon.pl/en/uncertainty-of-radiocarbon-date/
Seems at least one scholar was extremely skeptical of these claims. Says these types of bead weren't even manufactured in Venice until circa 1560: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-antiquity/a...
> the dates seem AWFULLY close to Columbus
What would that matter? Columbus was nowhere near Alaska.
What would that matter? Columbus was nowhere near Alaska.
Suppose that beads became a hot trade item. How fast could they have been traded from the Caribbean to Alaska?
It seems like 30 years is a reasonable time for that.
It seems like 30 years is a reasonable time for that.
In that case, I'd expect to find a few beads in the middle.
Maybe we will.
That's the opposite of evidence; there's a very good reason it has no standing in science.
It took a while to find this one. Absence of evidence is not exactly evidence of absence. That’s the point.
You've misunderstood. It's hard to prove a negative, which is the point. But made-up things are lies - evidence is the only currency of the realm.
I took their meaning to be that we should keep looking into the whole matter since, either way, there might be more evidence to find. I don’t think they were dismissing this theory or its implications for political/ideological reasons—since they mentioned it seems plausible—but I could be naive.
In any case, clearly the prevailing understanding is wrong in one way or another, and that should be reflected in curriculums alongside this new evidence.
In any case, clearly the prevailing understanding is wrong in one way or another, and that should be reflected in curriculums alongside this new evidence.
Yeah, although again, the error bars are too large to say with certainty this was pre-Columbus.
But it really wouldn’t surprise me. As others pointed out, the Inuit traveled across the Bering Strait into what is now Russia many times pre-Columbus, so the idea they may have brought beads back with them is plausible.
But it really wouldn’t surprise me. As others pointed out, the Inuit traveled across the Bering Strait into what is now Russia many times pre-Columbus, so the idea they may have brought beads back with them is plausible.
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> ...[A]t the Ust’-Polui site near Salekhard, on the Ob River, archaeologists have found beads... believed to have originated in the Roman Empire or from Parthian production centres
Aw man, I would set a one-way time machine to a 2nd Century Parthian bead production center for the ASMR alone. If I ever got bored I could just hitchhike to Alaska.
Aw man, I would set a one-way time machine to a 2nd Century Parthian bead production center for the ASMR alone. If I ever got bored I could just hitchhike to Alaska.
That said, communities like the Yupik have constantly travelled across the Bering and all the way in Uelkal, but I'm not sure we can treat the Inuit in the same context as other First Nations with regards to Pre-Colombian exchange.
Though, that said as well, if there were trade connections, it was most likely extremely limited. Even Hokkaido wasn't truly settled and colonized by the Japanese until the 1860s, and there's a reason Tungusic peoples like the Jurchen and Manchu preferred migrating south into China and Korea instead of northward - it was inhospitable land whose inhabitants were viewed as "barbarians". Sort of similar to how the Greeks and Romans didn't explore far beyond Crimea into Central Asia due to various Indo-European nomadic tribes that they'd view as "barbarians", and relying on second hand information.
Also, the distances are massive - Chukota to the Amur is the same distance as Paris to Baghdad, except with a fraction of the population density.
Loved visiting the Bering Land Bridge Natural Preserve outside Nome though. It was exhilarating. I always wanted to do something similar in Chukota or Sakha as well, but can't with the current political climate. At least I've been able to scratch my ethnographic itch about Paleo-Siberian and Northern Pacific communities when visiting Fairbanks, Seattle, or Hokkaido on occasional visits.
Highly recommend reading "The Shaman's Coat: A Native History of Siberia" by Anna Reid as well. It's what stoked a lot of my interest in Paleo-Siberian peoples. Scratches a similar itch to thinking about Inner Asian communities and the ancestral Puebloans.
[0] - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03054...