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Native American jewelry refers to items of personal adornment, whether for personal use, sale or as art; examples of which might include necklaces, earrings, bracelets, rings and pins, as well as ketohs, wampum, and labrets, made by one of the Indigenous peoples of the United States. Native American jewelry normally reflects the cultural diversity and history of its makers, but tribal groups have often borrowed and copied designs and methods from other, neighboring tribes or nations with which they had trade, and this practice continues today. Native American tribes continue to develop distinct aesthetics rooted in their personal artistic visions and cultural traditions. Artists may create jewelry for adornment, ceremonies, and display, or for sale or trade. Lois Sherr Dubin writes, "()n the absence of written languages, adornment became an important element of Indian communication, conveying many levels of information." Later, jewelry and personal adornment "...signaled resistance to assimilation. It remains a major statement of tribal and individual identity."〔Dubin, Lois Sherr. North American Indian Jewelry and Adornment: From Prehistory to the Present. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1999: 170-171. ISBN 0-8109-3689-5.〕 Native American jewelry can be made from naturally occurring materials such as various metals, hardwoods, vegetal fibers, or precious and semi-precious gemstones; animal materials such as teeth, bones and hide; or man-made materials like beadwork and quillwork. Metalsmiths, beaders, carvers, and lapidaries combine these materials to create jewelry. Contemporary Native American jewelry ranges from hand-quarried and processed stones and shells to computer-fabricated steel and titanium jewelry. ==Origins== Jewelry in the Americas has an ancient history. The earliest known examples of jewelry North American are four bone earrings founded at the Mead Site, near Fairbanks, Alaska that date back 12,000 years. Beginning as far back as 8800 BCE, Paleo-Indians in the American Southwest drilled and shaped multicolored stones and shells into beads and pendants.〔Dubin 466〕 Olivella shell beads, dating from 6000 BCE, were found in Nevada; bone, antler, and possibly marine shell beads from 7000 BCE were found in Russell Cave in Alabama; copper jewelry was traded from Lake Superior beginning in 3000 BCE; and stone beads were carved in Poverty Point in Louisiana in 1500 BCE.〔Dubin 29〕 Necklaces of heishe beads, or shell ground into flat discs, have been discovered in ancient ruins. Remnants of seashells that were used to make beads were also found. Oyster shell, mother of pearl, abalone, conch and clam shells have been important trade items in the Southwest for over a thousand years. Native beadwork continued to advance in the pre-Columbian era. Beads were made from hand-ground and filled turquoise, coral, and shell. Carved wood, animal bones, claws, and teeth were made into beads, which were then sewn onto clothing, or strung into necklaces.〔Adair〕〔Morgan, William Henry. League of the Ho-D-No-Sau-Nee or Iroquois. Volume 2. 1851〕 Turquoise is one of the dominant materials of Southwestern Native American jewelry.Thousands of pieces were found in the Ancestral Pueblo sites at Chaco Canyon. Some turquoise mines date back to Precolumbian times, and Ancestral Pueblo peoples traded the turquoise with Mesoamericans. Some turquoise found in southern Arizona dates back to 200 BCE.〔〔Anderson, Lee. (n.d.). ("The History of American Indian Jewelry." )〕 〔Margery Bedinger, Indian Silver, Navajo and Pueblo Jewelers, University of New Mexico Press, 1973. M.G. Brown, Blue Gold, The Turquoise Story, Main Street Press, Anaheim, CA, 1975.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Native American jewelry」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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