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8 Another Money Cowrie was unearthed near the so-called Onatonabee Serpent Mound of Peterboro County in Ontario, Canada. It is most likely that in both of these cases the shells were the remnants of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s shell stock which was bartered with the Cree and other Indians well before the time of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

A lively trade in marine shells took place for centuries among the pre-Columbian peoples of southwestern United States. Archaeological studies in that area have been able to confirm the existence of trade routes which then existed from three principal geographical areas, one along the coast of southern California, a second from the Gulf of California, and the third on the Atlantic side from the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.

Marine shells were used primarily as ornaments. Beads of glossy Olivellas and Olive shells were by far the most popular throughout the estimated 1000-year span of trading. Pendants, bracelets, rattles, trumpets and carved shells were popular in that order. Pacific Coast shells were passed on from settlement to settlement to a limited extent by the early Basket Makers (?-500 A.D.) and, with the rise of the late Basket Makers (500-700 A.D.), trading increased from both the Pacific Coast and the Gulf of California.