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
Shell tools in the Philippines shell serves as a decorative motif. The oldest known ornaments made from cone shells were found in the early 1960s in the grave of an adult male in Duyong Cave in Palawan. A shell disk with a hole in the center was found next to his right ear and a disk with a hole by the edge was found on his chest. The shell ornaments were dated 4854 B.C. Duyong Cave, near the Tabon Caves of Palawan's western coast (Philippines) produced a "Neolithic Burial" with four Tridacna shell adzes and two different types of shell ornaments as well as other