Shinnecock Indian Nation western Connecticut, the lower Hudson River Valley, through present-day New Jersey, Delaware and Pennsylvania. Like the other Native peoples of Long Island, the Shinnecock made "wampumpeag" (wampum), shell beads strung onto threads that were used as currency, for record-keeping, for aesthetic purposes, and to symbolize a family. These shell beads have been found at Native American-inhabited sites as far west as the Rocky Mountains, showing their value in a trade. Although other New England tribes produced "wampumpeag", the Indians of Long Island are reputed to have made the best. Paumanac, one of the many names given to Long Island, means
Prehistoric beads in the Philippines of the shell beads found in sites were actually cut beads. This shows that there was a significant development of technique and method to be able to design these shell beads, as modification after the cutting process would have been substantially difficult. Francis discussed in his study of the Philippine shell bead collection, that the beads may have been around since the Late Neolithic period and were later replaced by glass and other inorganic beads from about 200 BCE – 1200 CE. Glover and Henderson place the date of glass bead trade in Southeast Asia at no later than 400