In fact, quite a bit is known about drilling beads by Native Americans before contact with Europeans. However, first we must consider some limitations on the topic.

The term "Native American" can cover everyone from the Arctic Circle to Tierra del Fuego, and that over a long period of time. My remarks will be limited to North America. But North America was not a monolithic society before contact. In Mesoamerica (southern Mexico and Central America) civilizations developed, and the most sophisticated of them (for example, the Olmec, Maya, and Aztec) were light years ahead of natives living in what is now the US and Canada as far as technological sophistication went.

When one speaks of drilling several factors must be kept in mind. One is the nature of the material being drilled. Materials are conventionally divided into hard and soft, depending on their ease of being scratched or drilled. Those below 6 on the Mohs scale of Hardness are usually thought of as "soft." These include many minerals, from talc through turquoise to apaptite, as well as most organic materials, including shell and pearls. Stones of a hardness of 6 (feldspar) and above, including quartz at 7 and agate and jasper at 6.5 cannot be successfully drilled without a sophisticated lapidary method (incidentally, topaz is 8, ruby and sapphire are 9, and diamond is 10 on this scale).

Some materials need not be drilled at all. Shells are often found on the beach with holes in them very similar to the way people would perforate them. Many whole shell beads are not drilled, but perforated by hammering, gouging, sawing, grinding, scratching, or a combination of two of these techniques. The large bones of birds are naturally hollow. So are many mammal bones, once the marrow is removed.

We must also look at the drill itself. The earliest drills were held by hand. Later simple machines (the bow drill and the pump drill) were invented.

The cutting edge, the drill bit is also important. A stone sufficiently harder than the material it is drilling can be used all by itself (though water is usually applied so that heat does not build up). A drill softer than the material to be drilled can also work as long as a harder abrasive is employed. The abrasive can either be a slurry or in powder form. The cactus spine spoken of earlier was used experimentally (though it may have been used anciently). It was not heated to harden it.

Before drilling, it is common to put a rough spot on a bead (called a dimple) to give the drill bit a place to "bite." This can be done with a larger drill bit, or by chipping, grinding, or pecking at a spot on the bead-to-be. Another thing to note is whether the bead has been drilled from both sides or only one.

In Mesoamerica it is clear that mechanical drills were employed as early as Olmec times. The materials being drilled were soft. Hard stone beads in Maya times were usually not drilled, their perforations being made by pecking repeatedly at two spots on the opposite side of the bead. By the time the early Spaniards got to Mexico Father Sahagan tells us that hard stone beads were drilled with hollow copper tubes and an abrasive.

North of Mexico by far the most common bead material was shell. In the central and southeastern part of the US during the Mississippian Period (ca. AD 800 to 1500) small shell beads became extremely popular, having developed from such beads beginning in the preceding Woodland Period. An entire stone tool industry was developed for the purpose of making these shell beads. As the stone tools are small, it is referred to as a "microlithic" industry.

At St. Catherines GA, the site of a Guale village and then a Spanish mission, whose beads I am studying the difference between Late Mississippian and colonial era beads is clear. In both cases, the beads were drilled from both sides and in neither case was a mechanical drilled used. The difference lies in the size of the perforations. The older ones have much larger holes because a stone drill was used. Those of the colonial period had much smaller holes because the Guale were able to secure awls (or more likely just nails) from the Spanish. This is consistent with accounts of native beadmaking older than or contemporary with St. Catherines in places like South Carolina and Rhode Island.