ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the explicit scrutiny of one form of craft production may offer archaeologists one way to explore these murky issues. It provides a regional context for one specific category of glass beads that dominates the Pattanam corpus and is mentioned most often elsewhere the Indo-Pacific bead. The challenge of using craft production data from early South Indian society to generate models of socioeconomic organization is clearly in its most preliminary stages. In the Early Historic period, the Indian subcontinent as a whole had few if any large-scale centralized political systems after the Mauryans of 2nd century BC and before the Guptas of the 4th century AD. The production and movement of craft products, such as glass beads, across a widely decentralized landscape could very well have created a system of sociocultural cohesion generated and sustained by strong craft and mercantile networks that would be necessary in the absence of well-defined centralizing political authorities.
