A Wealth of Beads: Evidence for Material Wealth-Based Inequality in the Salish Sea Region, 4000–3500 Cal B.P.

Archaeologists working in the Salish Sea (Strait of Georgia and Puget Sound) region of the Pacific Northwest have unearthed human burials and non-mortuary features dated to 4000-3500 cal B.P. containing tens and even hundreds of thousands of stone and shell disc beads. Several sites are reported here, including burials recently excavated from site DjRw-14 located in the territory of the shishalh Nation. We argue that the disc beads constituted an important form of material wealth at this time, based on the amount of labor that would have been required to produce them and the capacity for beads to accrue ill value after their production. A model of material wealth-based inequality is developed for a period much older than many archaeologists working in the region have previously thought.