Event: WEDS TALKS: The Meaning and Use of Shell Beads among the Chumash and other California Indians

ABSTRACT: The Chumash Indians of southern California made and used beads of stone, bone, and shell for over 8,000 years, but what did they use them for? Beads were used as a form of adornment and eventually as a currency. They also served to integrate people separated by long distances. In some areas of California, beads were brought for regularly scheduled feasts to help with the expenses of the dancers, musicians, and the food provided. More than 22 species of shell beads can be found in California. Some types were used as money by the Chumash. Beads made on the Northern Channel Islands were traded widely, as far as the Bay Area and even the Southwestern United States. The context and shifting uses of beads are reviewed, and an earlier date for the first use of money in North America is proposed.

BIO: Lynn H. Gamble is Professor Emerita of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara and has been active in anthropological archaeology, with a focus in California, for over 45 years.

Her interests include shell bead money and ornamentation, emergence of inequality, cultural and ritual landscapes, social identity, mortuary patterns, long distance exchange, ritual and sociopolitical complexity, culture contact, climate change, and long-term transformations among hunter-gatherer societies. She focuses on the archaeology of the Santa Barbara Channel region and the emergence of complexity among hunter-gatherers. One of her significant publications is the book The Chumash World at European Contact: Power, Trade, and Feasting Among Complex Hunter-Gatherers with University of California Press. In addition, she is author of over 70 articles, chapters, edited volumes, and monographs. Recent articles that focus on shell beads include “The Origin and Use of Shell Bead Money in California" (2020) and “Navigating Cooperative Marketplaces: the Chumash Indians and the Dynamics of Hunting/Gathering/Fishing Economies” (2025).