Shell Bead Study Pushes Back Use of Forex in California

SANTA BARBARA, CALIFORNIA—According to a assertion unveiled by the University of California, Santa Barbara, archaeologist Lynn Gamble in comparison and calculated distinct styles of shell beads made by California’s Chumash hunter-gatherers. Shell beads have been used in California for more than 10,000 a long time, she defined, incorporating that labored shell utilised as currency would have been very standardized, labor intensive, broadly distributed, and possible lesser than eye-catching beads set to ornamental use. She now thinks the Chumash made use of shell beads as currency at minimum 2,000 many years in the past, or about 1,200 years before than earlier believed. She also mentioned that drills and shell detritus from bead generation courting back some 4,000 a long time have been located on California’s northern Channel Islands, and chemical examination of shell beads uncovered in northern California’s San Francisco Bay Space suggests the shells came from an space to the south of southern California’s Issue Conception. Shell bead currency probably aided to facilitate the trade of products together California’s huge hunter-gatherer trade network, she concluded. For a lot more on the Chumash, go to “Planet Roundup: California.”