Blair (Reference Blair2021) comments that the invention of Venetian drawn, hollow, cane manufacturing is less muddled than we present, pointing to approximately AD 1470 as its inception. We accept that this timing occurred in the decades prior to the founding of the Paternostri guild (AD 1486). Blair cites archaeological data in Venice and the New World, indicating the complete absence of the a speo method and IIa40 beads before AD 1560. Nonetheless, as with Punyik Point, pre-1560 Early Blue / IIa40 beads were also recovered during excavations at Nueva Cádiz (Jeffrey Mitchem, personal communication 2021), a Venezuelan Spanish pearl fishing station active from AD 1515 to 1541, though their presence is unreported in publications (Deagan Reference Deagan1987). We posit that if present this early, then why not earlier?

Blair (Reference Blair2021) points out that after the establishment of the Paternostri guild, drawn beads were “primarily” finished by grinding rather than by a speo heat rounding during the late fifteenth and “much of” the sixteenth (presumably ~1560) centuries, citing archaeological evidence. Our narrative has been based on beads that could have been made during a development period prior to regular production by the a speo method, a point supported by Francis (Reference Francis1988), who states that IIa40 / Early Blue beads were among the earliest of the drawn beads. We are not arguing that the a speo method was the sole or primary method of finishing beads prior to the mid-sixteenth century. Nothing presented by Blair changes the fact that scholars are uncertain of the exact timing of a speo development. Radiocarbon and other dating from tightly controlled proveniences associated with these beads, and more documentary research, will narrow down this timing.

Although Blair considered this an unfortunate methodology choice, we had the Punyik Point beads analyzed by instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) in order to compare them directly to earlier INAA studies of the same bead variety (Hancock et al. Reference Hancock, Chafe and Kenyon1994). We produced the same graphic during our analysis that Blair (Reference Blair2021:Figure 1) did, and we stand by our original conclusion: the results are inconclusive regarding temporal assignment, given that the arctic beads' data overlap all three of the Hancock and colleagues' periods. More work is obviously needed.

Blair also states that both of the Punyik Point dates in our report are “problematic” and that we ignore a suite of other assays from the site that date to later centuries. We have explained in detail the old wood effect associated with the Beta-193802 assay (Kunz and Mills Reference Kunz and Mills2021). We are not “dismissive” of this issue. In fact, our understanding of it, in the context of Punyik Point, brings this date into alignment with the bead-associated twine date (Beta-201353). Blair correctly points out that in Kunz (Reference Kunz2005), the Beta-201353 dated material is labeled “sinew.” The sinew label was an unfortunate typographical error that was not discovered until after publication. The ¹³C/¹²C stable isotope ratio for this assay, shown in Kunz (Reference Kunz2005) and Kunz and Mills (Reference Kunz and Mills2021), is consistent with terrestrial plants, not animals, and certainly not marine mammals. Less than 1% of the 2σ calibrated temporal probability of that date is more recent than AD 1488, and we stand by its accuracy.

Blair implies that earlier publications by Kunz (Reference Kunz2005, Reference Kunz and McManamon2009) indicate that the Late Prehistoric Eskimo occupation of Punyik Point occurred primarily during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. His Figure 2, used to support this position, is misleading. The figure points out, correctly, that there are multiple Late Prehistoric occupations there. The site is a palimpsest of repeated occupations over thousands of years. Of the 45 visible house and cache pits on site, most are probably Late Prehistoric in age, and only five houses have been dated: two from the fifteenth century and three from later centuries. Semi-subterranean houses indicate winter use, and the simultaneous occupation of only a few houses would completely deplete the site's willow-patch fuel source. Consequently, the locale would be abandoned for extended periods while the willows replenished—a cycle that was repeated over and over. In fact, there were likely multiple sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century occupations at the site, but IIa40 beads have not been found in any of their features. In our report, we present only two of the 21 radiocarbon dates associated with the site because they are the only two that relate to the presence of IIa40 beads.

As explained in our report, the association between the Lake Kaiyak and Kinyiksugvik dated materials and the beads is not as secure as those outlined for Punyik Point. We regard the Lake Kaiyak bead-associated assays as supporting a credible fifteenth-century occupation at the site. The association between the Kinyiksugvik bead and its adjacent dated material is the poorest of all the dates, and it may not even be associated with the IIa40 bead at all in this midden context. Assays from these two sites may also represent examples of the “heirloom effect,” a cautionary point also made by Deagan (Reference Deagan1987:162) for some early glass beads from the southeastern United States.

In sum, we stand by our original conclusions that the most parsimonious explanation of available data is that IIa40 beads arrived in arctic Alaska in the latter fifteenth century, and that they traveled east from Venice over routes currently unknown. We urge further historical research into both a speo and drawn cane manufacturing. We hope our report stimulates academic interest in and reporting of fifteenth- to seventeenth-century European glass trade beads in Asia.