Excavation of the contact-period components of the Maya sites of Lamanai and Tipu in northern and west-central Belize, respectively, have yielded moderate collections of European glass and other beads. The archaeological data are augmented by ethnohistorical documentation regarding the length of Maya/Spanish interaction. Contexts do not provide unequivocal stratigraphic evidence of sequential bead importation, but known dates of bead varieties assist in refining both site chronology and the understanding of bead use. As the first Central American collections to be analyzed, the two assemblages offer an initial glimpse of one aspect of European impact on native material and non-material culture.