Papers by William T Billeck
Beads: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers, 2017
Glass bead sample cards were sent out in the 19th century by bead dealers and producers to illust... more Glass bead sample cards were sent out in the 19th century by bead dealers and producers to illustrate their products and few are known that include small beads of drawn manufacture. One such card marked New York was acquired in 1882 by Captain Eli Lindesmith, a Catholic priest and Army chaplain at Fort Keogh, Montana. Lindesmith used the card to select seed beads for a cradleboard he commissioned that year from a Cheyenne woman named Flying Woman, the wife of Wolf Voice. This previously undescribed sample card is compared to other 19th-century cards displaying drawn beads in an attempt to determine its origin. Insight into the identity and family history of the maker of the cradleboard is also provided.
Yearbook of Physical Anthropology , 2005
Two laws governing the disposition of Native American human remains in museums and institutions h... more Two laws governing the disposition of Native American human remains in museums and institutions have had a profound impact on anthropology, and especially physical anthropology. In contrast to the perception of constant conflict between Native Americans and physical anthropologists, the repatriation process based on these laws has been in large part harmonious between institutions and Native peoples in the US. Despite misconceptions, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAPGRA; 25 United States Code (U.S.C.) 3001-3013) was not intended to halt further research on Native American remains in museums. In fact, court decisions have affirmed that the documentation of human remains produces information no other methods can provide, and provides necessary evidence to be incorporated and weighed, along with other evidence, in evaluating \cultural affiliation," the legal term for the required connection from federally recognized Native American groups to their ancestors. The wide variety of osteological data collected at the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH), Smithsonian Institution, have proven indispensable when evaluating cultural affiliation, especially when other information sources are unhelpful or ambiguous, and provide an empirical basis for determining the ancestry of individuals whose remains will be discovered in the future. To date, the claim-driven process at the NMNH has resulted in the affiliation and repatriation of more Native American remains than any other institution in the country. Repatriation experiences at the NMNH demonstrate the changing relationships between museums and Native peoples, the continuing important contributions that physical anthropology makes to the repatriation process, and the importance of physical anthropology in understanding the recent and ancient history of North America.
Beads: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers, 2019
Glass trade bead assemblages recovered during archaeological investigations at nine sites by Smit... more Glass trade bead assemblages recovered during archaeological investigations at nine sites by Smithsonian archaeologists Betty Meggers and Clifford Evans in Brazil in 1948 and 1949 and Guyana in 1952 and 1953 date to multiple time periods, including the early 17th, mid-18th, mid-19th, and mid-20th centuries. The assemblages are used to show that the glass bead chronologies developed in North America are directly applicable to South America and that there is a global glass bead sequence related to European colonialism. White drawn glass beads were independently dated by comparison with known composition changes through time in how the glass was made opaque. Compositions were determined using pXRF.
Archeological Investigations at Engineer Cantonment: Winter Quarters of the 1819-1820 Long Expedition, Eastern, Nebraska, edited by John R. Bozell, Gayle F. Carlson, and Robert E. Pepperl, Appendix D, pp. 339-350. History Nebraska, Publications in Anthropology 12. , 2018
The glass bead assemblage from the military post at Fort Atkinson, Nebraska (1820-1827) is descri... more The glass bead assemblage from the military post at Fort Atkinson, Nebraska (1820-1827) is described and compared to assemblage at the Engineer Cantonment, Nebraska (1819-1820)
Archeological Investigations at Engineer Cantonment: Winter Quarters of the 1819-1820 Long Expedition, Eastern Nebraska, edited by John R. Bozell, Gayle F. Carlson, and Robert E. Pepperl, pp. 172-181. History Nebraska, Publications in Anthropology 12., 2018
Beads: Journal of the Society for Bead Researchers, 2008
The red-on-white drawn glass bead is an under-used 19th-century temporal marker for cultural obje... more The red-on-white drawn glass bead is an under-used 19th-century temporal marker for cultural objects and archaeological assemblages from Native American and fur trade sites in the Plains region of the United States. This bead variety is referred to as "cornelian" in Plains fur trade records, but is also known by several additional names in other places including cornaline d'Aleppo, cornaline, and corniola. By examining bead sample cards, historical references, fur trade ledgers, beaded cultural objects in museums, and beads from archaeological assemblages, it was determined that this bead variety first appears in the latter part of the 1830s in Plains ethnology and archaeological collections. Plains fur trade ledgers first refer to cornelian beads in 1837, and are common therein by the mid-1840s. These multiple lines of evidence provide a chronology for drawn red-on-white beads that is relevant for both the Plains and other regions.
BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers, 2008
The red-on-white drawn glass bead is an under-used 19th-century temporal marker for cultural obje... more The red-on-white drawn glass bead is an under-used 19th-century temporal marker for cultural objects and archaeological assemblages from Native American and fur trade sites in the Plains region of the United States. This bead variety is referred to as "cornelian" in Plains fur trade records, but is also known by several additional names in other places including cornaline d'Aleppo, cornaline, and corniola. By examining bead sample cards, historical references, fur trade ledgers, beaded cultural objects in museums, and beads from archaeological assemblages, it was determined that this bead variety first appears in the latter part of the 1830s in Plains ethnology and archaeological collections. Plains fur trade ledgers first refer to cornelian beads in 1837, and are common therein by the mid-1840s. These multiple lines of evidence provide a chronology for drawn red-on-white beads that is relevant for both the Plains and other regions.
Northern and Central Plains obsidian artifacts curated by the Smithsonian Institution's National ... more Northern and Central Plains obsidian artifacts curated by the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History have received little attention by researchers working to understand the nature of long-distance trade, exchange, and interaction. We present the results of a chemical analysis of obsidian stone tools and debitage from these collections. Significant differences in patterns of obsidian use exist between the Northern and Central Plains. Shifts in obsidian use through time within the Central Plains may indicate larger socioeconomic shifts, while obsidian from Northern Plains assemblages suggests an antiquity to interaction networks at least as old as the first Plains Village sites in the region. By creating the first multi-regional obsidian database encompassing parts of the Northern and Central Plains, we expect that the data and our interpretations enhance discussions at the intersection of trade, exchange, and inter-group interaction in the Northern as well as Central Plains.
Plains Anthropologist (2018)
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The Arikara (Sanish) were unsurpassed in the manufacture of glass pendants, beads, and effigies m... more The Arikara (Sanish) were unsurpassed in the manufacture of glass pendants, beads, and effigies made by crushing and re-fusing glass trade beads in the historic period (Billeck 2013). While native-made glass items are best known among the Arikara, a number of other tribes also made them. Tabeau, Lewis and Clark, Catlin, and Prince Maximilian, all notable travelers and traders to the northern Plains in the nineteenth century, as well as many others, reported the manufacture of objects such as pendants from remelted glass trade beads by the Arikara, Mandan, and Hidatsa (Abel 1939:149; Catlin 1848:2:261; Moulton 1987:315; Witte and Gallagher 2012:158). While these accounts mention the techniques and practices associated with the artifacts, and sometimes describe how the items were made, they rarely consider why indigenous glass objects were produced or how they were used. It was not until much later that James Howard (1972) discussed the cultural context of native-made pendants in the Plains. This paper builds upon Howard’s research by exploring the ways these objects were used. I demonstrate that they were not solely decorative, but that they had varied meanings in differing cultural contexts.
In Archaeological and Geophysical Investigations During 2012 at Fort Clark State Historic Site, Mercer County, North Dakota, edited by Mark D. Mitchell, pp.127-136. Research Contribution No. 90, Paleocultural Research Group, Broomfield, Colorado., 2014
Description of shell artifacts, fulgurite fragments , and other materials from the 2012 village ... more Description of shell artifacts, fulgurite fragments , and other materials from the 2012 village excavation of an Arikara cabin at Fort Clark, North Dakota
In Archaeological and Geophysical Investigations During 2012 at Fort Clark State Historic Site, Mercer County, North Dakota, edited by Mark D. Mitchell, pp. 75-83. Research Contribution No. 90, Paleocultural Research Group, Broomfield, Colorado.
1850s glass bead assemblage from an Arikara cabin at Fort Clark, North Dakota
In The 1997-2001 Excavations at Fort Pierre Chouteau, Volume 2: Material Culture, edited by Michael Fosha and James K. Haug, pp. 1-100. South Dakota State Historical Society, Archaeological Research Center, Research Report 3. , 2010
Glass, metal and shell beads from Fort Pierre Chouteau fur trade post in South Dakota dated to ca... more Glass, metal and shell beads from Fort Pierre Chouteau fur trade post in South Dakota dated to ca 1832 to 1855
Native American human remains from the United States are required to be evaluated for cultural af... more Native American human remains from the United States are required to be evaluated for cultural affiliation and repatriated, when requested, to culturally affiliated federally recognized tribes under the National Museum of American Indian Act and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. These laws require the systematic review of the affiliation of human remains under the new, less rigorous standard of preponderance of evidence. The result of this new standard is that many more remains have been identified as affiliated than were previously listed in museum records. The patterning of the affiliation is examined under the new standard of evidence for Plains human remains in the collections of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History.
Conference Presentations by William T Billeck
Paper presented 76th Annual Plains Anthropological Conference, San Antonio, Texas , 2018
White drawn beads are common in historic period archaeological assemblages and show very limited ... more White drawn beads are common in historic period archaeological assemblages and show very limited stylistic variation. A pXRF study of 485 beads from 14 sites, dating from the early 17th century to the late 19th century, demonstrates that while these white beads look highly similar, their chemical composition changes over time due to the use of different opacifiers. A lead-tin calx opacifier is limited to the early 16th century, calcium antimonate dominates from the late 17th to the end of the 18th century, and lead antimonate occurs only in larger drawn beads in the mid-18th and 19th centuries. Lead arsenate begins to be used in the 19th century and then becomes the predominant opacifier later in the century. pXRF is a nondestructive method that can assist in dating the ubiquitous white drawn beads that occur in most North American glass bead assemblages.
The results of a pXRF analysis of 141 obsidian artifacts from 25 sites in North and South Dakota,... more The results of a pXRF analysis of 141 obsidian artifacts from 25 sites in North and South Dakota, Kansas, and Nebraska are presented. This work contributes to current understandings of long-distance exchange in the region by providing new data and testing existing interpretations.
Books by William T Billeck
Handbook of North American indians, 2022
in Volume 1, Introduction, Handbook of North American Indians, Igor Krupnik, Volume Editor, pp. 7... more in Volume 1, Introduction, Handbook of North American Indians, Igor Krupnik, Volume Editor, pp. 75-89. Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press, Washington, DC.
In Excavations at Fool Chief's Village (14SH405), by Tricia J. Waggoner, pp. 135-150. Contract Archeology Program, Cultural Resources Division, Kansas Historical Society, Report Submitted to the Kansas Department of Transportation And the Kansas State Historic Preservation Office, December 2018, 2018
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Papers by William T Billeck
Plains Anthropologist (2018)
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00320447.2018.1480860
Conference Presentations by William T Billeck
Books by William T Billeck
Plains Anthropologist (2018)
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00320447.2018.1480860