A Bead Too Far: Rethinking Global Connections Before Columbus

27 themgt 3 5/23/2025, 2:22:48 PM peterfrankopan.substack.com ↗

Comments (3)

Robotbeat · 1h ago
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/
chilmers · 31m ago
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...
rezmason · 35m ago
> ...[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.