Pap. ?k)^' 2^5"/' JOHN H. KERR RESERVOIR BASIN — ^MILLER 



191 



labor and a love for adornment — one must consider the never-ending 

 time expended to produce such objects. 



To make up a necklace of shell beads ranging in diameter from 2 

 mm. to 3 mm., it has been found that 28 to 34 small beads are required 

 to make an inch of necklace (pi. 62, a). One necklace of small beads 

 that was recovered, measured 66 inches in length. This means that 

 2,244 beads had to be made and strung before this individual necklace 

 could be worn. Haury (1931) estimated that to make a single bead it 

 would take at least 15 minutes to drill the hole and to round off the 

 blank into an acceptable disk-shaped bead. This is a very conservative 

 estimate, as it does not allow for the cutting of the blanks or the time 

 necessary to thin down the individual specimen. Using his figures, it is 

 found that it would require a minimmn of 561 hours to make this par- 

 ticular necklace. Reducing this to man-days (one man working a 



a 



Figure 45. — Schematic drawing indicating types of perforations used to pierce shell blanks 

 to create beads, Clarksville site, 44Mcl4. 



straight 8-hour day making beads) , it is estimated that 70^ man-days 

 are required just to make the beads for this one necklace. A dozen or 

 more necklaces of this type were recovered from various burials in the 

 Clarksville site (44 Mcl4) . 



A large number of the smaller disk-shaped beads measured 2 mm. to 

 3 mm. in diameter and some ran as high as 4 mm. Perforations were 

 gaged to allow plenty of material giving strength to each. Thickness 

 varied from 0.75 mm. to 3.5 mm. 



To determine the type of perforations used, a number of beads were 

 cross-sectioned. These revealed three basic types (fig. 45). One is a 

 straight tube, miiform in diameter throughout, which was made by 

 drilling with some slender instrument from a smgle direction (fig. 45, 

 a). A second type, a biconical perforation, gives an inverted double 

 truncated cone effect. This type of hole was made by drilling from 

 both sides with a fairly wide bit of some sort ( fig. 45, c) . A third type 

 is the truncated cone that resulted when a tapering, pointed drill was 

 used on one side of the bead blank ( fig. 45, 5 ) . 



During the excavation these small disk-shaped beads were recovered 

 at practically every stage of manufacture : the squared blanks which 

 have been drilled, these drilled blanks rounded off, the rough bead 

 which has been reduced in thickness, and the bead in its final stage. 

 Plate 72 shows the whole process. 



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