Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2007, Síða 30

Elín Hreiðarsdóttir
Figure 6. Map of Europe showing major centers of bead production in the Medieval and early
Modern period.
tant questions about origins, trade links
and social context. Analysis of chemical
components of the glass beads, doing XRF
analysis of the jet and absorption spectra
tests on the amber might help to establish
more firmly the origin of the material.
These tests will however not always give
a clear picture of where the beads were
made nor will they tell us anything about
how they came to Iceland, since it is likely
that many of them might not be imported
directly from the place of manufacture but
might instead have changed hands a few
times before reaching Iceland. However,
despite it being difficult to prove without
compositional analysis where individual
beads might originate from, the likely ori-
gins of most of the bead groups have been
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