Abstract

The long time period covered by the Hostivice cemeteries of the fourth century, late fifth–mid-sixth centuries and tenth century makes it possible to study the development of glass beads from the Late Roman period to the Early Middle Ages. Chemical analyses confirmed that the beads from central Europe reflect the principal transition from natron to plant ash glass during the eighth–ninth centuries. This study also shows that the beads made from natron glass were still distributed in the ninth–tenth centuries when new types of beads were made from this glass. Some of these beads are products of central European glass-working, where they occur alongside imported beads. Apart from that, high-boron glass, high-lead glass and a faience bead were also present at Hostivice in the tenth century. Limitations of chemical analysis in the study of beads related to compositional subgroups of natron glass and connected with the large scale of recycling and to the heterogeneity of opaque glass of beads are discussed. The recognition of supraregional and local types of beads, together with the synthesis of chemical and archaeological data, allowed us to characterize the reciprocal relations between chemical groups of glass and the typology and manufacturing techniques of the beads