Bead
Beads can be divided into several types of overlapping categories based on different criteria such as the materials from which they are made, the process used in their manufacturing, the place or period of origin, the patterns on their surface, or their general shape.
In modern manufacturing, the most common bead materials are wood, plastic, glass, metal, and stone.
However, some of these materials now routinely undergo some extra processing beyond mere shaping and drilling such as color enhancement via dyes or irradiation.
The natural organics include bone, coral, horn, ivory, seeds (such as tagua nuts), animal shells, and wood.
For most of human history, pearls were the ultimate precious beads of natural origin because of their rarity; the modern pearl-culturing process has made them far more common.
[1] Beads were also made from ancient alloys such as bronze and brass, but as those were more vulnerable to oxidation they have generally been less well-preserved at archaeological sites.
Small, colorful, fusible plastic beads can be placed on a solid plastic-backed peg array to form designs and then melted together with a clothes iron; alternatively, they can be strung into necklaces and bracelets or woven into keychains.
Fusible beads come in many colors and degrees of transparency/opacity, including varieties that glow in the dark or have internal glitter; peg boards come in various shapes and several geometric patterns.
Modern mass-produced beads are generally shaped by carving or casting, depending on the material and desired effect.
Some archaeologists had been working at Blombos cave located in South Africa, there was a recent discovery showing forty-one marine shell (Nassarius kraussianus) beads.
A smaller and more expensive subset of glass and lead crystal beads are cut into precise faceted shapes on an individual basis.
They derive their name from the second half of a two-part process: first, the glass batch is poured into round bead molds, then they are faceted with a grinding wheel.
There are several specialized glassworking techniques that create a distinctive appearance throughout the body of the resulting beads, which are then primarily referred to by the glass type.
If the glass batch is used to create a large massive block instead of pre-shaping it as it cools, the result may then be carved into smaller items in the same manner as stone.
More economically, millefiori beads can also be made by limiting the patterning process to long, narrow canes or rods known as murrine.
[3] Today these beads are commonly made of bison and water buffalo bones and are popular for breastplates and chokers among Plains Indians.
Wampum are cylindrical white or purple beads made from quahog or North Atlantic channeled whelk shells by northeastern Native American tribes, such as the Wampanoag and Shinnecock.
