Last night, I was reading Indian Silver Jewelry of the Southwest 1868-1930, by Larry Frank and thought this page was interesting and informative enough to post for those who do not own the book.
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Great share. It was so helpful when published, but there are some refinements to this now-old list, based on subsequent scholarship and oral histories. Also worth considering is that although a given technique may emerge in one place, it wouldn’t necessarily be adopted in the same timeframe across the Navajo and Pueblo lands. Closeness vs. remoteness to outside influences and trading has a lot to do with uptake of tech innovations. (This makes dating an object all the trickier.)
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@TAH. Thanks for posting this. I found it very interesting overall. The “garnets for settings” jumped out at me. (Garnet being my birthstone, a late January baby.) Not exactly sure what it means in that context but, I know that Bohemian garnets were very popular and used in jewelry during that time span (basically, the Victorian era).
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They were local garnets in Navajo land, not imported, and very rarely seen–since so little survives from that earliest period of Navajo stone setting.
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@chicfarmer Thanks, that makes more sense. I had noticed, too, that the time frame shown for garnet usage was only 5 years.
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Thanks @chicfarmer. I agree. I should have mentioned the book was published in 1990. Still interesting as general information.
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