Marginella Bead

A marginella bead is a whole small marine snail shell, the Atlantic marginella (Prunum apicinum, formerly Marginella apicina), strung as a bead. The shell is small, glossy and egg-shaped, with a short spire and a long, narrow opening down one side. The outline is not reshaped: the natural shell is the bead (Holmes 1883; Chaney 2017).

Makers opened a stringing hole by grinding the shoulder or spire on a rough stone, often deeply enough to expose the inner spiral, or by gouging a hole through the thin wall. Beads of the colonial period may instead carry holes drilled with metal tools (Holmes 1883; Chaney 2017).

Strung beads were worn in strands, woven into belts and sewn onto clothing, and in the 1600s they also served as currency in the Chesapeake region (Chaney 2017). Holmes (1883) ranked marginella with olive and cowrie shells as the leading small perforated shells in North America. They occur in Archaic shell middens in Kentucky, at Mississippian centers such as Town Creek, North Carolina, and Spiro, Oklahoma, and on colonial-era sites (Henderson and Burdin 2006; UNC RLA; Bell 1980; Chaney 2017). The key trait is a whole small glossy marginella shell with its spire or shoulder ground open for stringing.

The shells live in tidal flats and sea-grass beds from southern New England to the Gulf of Mexico (Chaney 2017), and along the Gulf from Port Aransas, Texas, to the Yucatan (Texas Beyond History). The beads travelled far inland: Kentucky, Ohio, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma and the Chesapeake region (Holmes 1883; Bell 1980; Henderson and Burdin 2006; UNC RLA).

Check that the shell is whole and glossy, with the hole made by grinding at the spire or shoulder rather than drilled through a cut blank. Olive-shell beads (Olivella, Oliva) are also whole shells; Holmes (1883) shows olive shells opened by knocking off the apex, so identify the species. Moorehead (1910) lists Nerita and Natica shells ground at the spire for beads, and Hodge (1910) groups marginella with Olivella and Natica as natural shells notched or pierced for ornament. Shell disk beads and columella beads are cut from large shells, not used whole. Sources differ on timing: marginella beads occur in Archaic Kentucky middens, while the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Lab, citing Ceci (1986), says they became common in the Chesapeake only after contact. A hole drilled with a metal tool points to the colonial period (Chaney 2017).