Wampum Wampum Wampum is a traditional shell bead of the Eastern Woodlands tribes of American Indians. It includes the white shell beads fashioned from the North Atlantic channeled whelk shell and the white and purple beads made from the quahog or Western North Atlantic hard-shelled clam. It was used by the northeastern Indian tribes as a form of gift exchange, and the colonists adopted it as currency in trading with them. Eventually, the colonists developed more efficient methods of producing wampum, which caused inflation and ultimately its obsolescence as currency. Wampum was often kept on strings like Chinese cash. Before European
Chimú culture only identified and discussed very few specific shell workshops. One workshop, which was thought to be maintained by the Chimú people, was identified at Túcume in the Lambayeque Region of Peru by archaeologist and researcher Daniel Sandweiss. Dating back to around 1390-1480 A.D., the workshop comprised various small rooms and contained evidence for the production of "Spondylus" beads. Shell debris from all stages of production, ranging from cut pieces to finished beads, along with the stone tools used to work the shell, were excavated from the site. While many archaeological sources point to the abundance of shell-working, as the remains