Tag Archives: shell

The Chumash Indians, hunter-gatherers centered on the south-central coast of Santa Barbara, were using highly worked shells as currency as early as 2,000 years ago, about 1,000 years earlier than archaeologists thought. Chumash cupped beads from purple dwarf olive sea snails (Olivella biplicata). Image credit: Lynn Gamble / SBMNH Collection. …

Archaeologists from the Pennsylvania State University and the Université libre de Bruxelles have found a stone offering box near a reef close to the north-eastern shore of Lake Titicaca, which is located in the Andes between Bolivia and Peru. The carved stone box contained a llama carved from a Spondylus …