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 shíshálh 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 in 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.