LA-ICP-MS analyses of complete glass bead sets from the Merovingian cemeteries Lent- Lentseveld, Elst-’t Woud and Wijchen-Centrum (the Netherlands)

In a previous article the complete glass bead assemblage of the 6th-century cemetery Lent-Lentseveld (Netherlands) was chemically analysed with LA-ICP-MS and pXRF. Principal Component Analyses (PCA) was used to identify chemical groups per bead-type and per grave. The results were very promising: for imported bead-types from the Eastern Mediterranean and further East clear chemical groups per bead-type were recognised. Whereas for both imported and European beads distinct groups per grave were identified. For this article, the bead assemblages of two other 6th-century cemeteries in the same region (Elst-’t Woud and Wijchen-Centrum) were analysed in the same manner, in order to establish whether similar patterns can be recognised. The results of the chemical analyses of the beads from Elst, Wijchen and Lent are in line with what was seen when considering only Lent: during the 6th century beads were imported over long distances to the region on several occasions, and once strung, beads tended to remain together as a distinct set. The beads excavated in Lent, Elst and Wijchen were clearly not acquired or exchanged one at a time and the possibility that complete strings of beads were exchanged cannot be ruled out. Hence, during the largest part of the 6th century, bead exchange from production sites to the person assembling a string of beads was organised in such a way that allowed beads from the same production or ‘bead-making event’ to stay together: a pan-European exchange network must have been in place.