Editing Seashell (section)

==== Currency ====
{{main|shell money}}

Seashells have been used as a medium of exchange in various places, including many Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean islands, also in North America, Africa and the Caribbean.
[[Image:Cypraea-moneta-001.jpg|thumb|1742 drawing of shells of the money cowry, ''[[Monetaria moneta]]'']]
* The most common species of shells to be used as currency have been ''[[Monetaria moneta]]'', the "money [[cowry]]",<ref name="Poutiers">{{cite book|last=Poutiers|first=J. M.|date=1998|chapter=Gastropods|url=http://www.fao.org/docrep/009/w7191e/w7191e44.pdf|title=FAO Species Identification Guide for Fishery Purposes: The living marine resources of the Western Central Pacific|volume=1. Seaweeds, corals, bivalves and gastropods|location=Rome|publisher=FAO|page=503|access-date=30 January 2019|archive-date=31 January 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190131043502/http://www.fao.org/docrep/009/w7191e/w7191e44.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>Hogendorn, Jan and Johnson Marion: The Shell Money of the Slave Trade. African Studies Series 49, [[Cambridge University Press]], [[Cambridge]], 1986.</ref> and certain [[Dentalium (anthropology)|dentalium]] [[tusk shell]]s, used in North Western North America for many centuries.
* Many of the tribes and nations all across the continent of Africa have historically used the [https://web.archive.org/web/20160323070635/http://www.blackhistorypages.net/pages/cowrie.php cowry] as their media of exchange. The cowry circulated, historically, alongside metal coins and goods, and foreign currencies. Being durable and easy to carry the cowry made a very favorable currency.
* Some tribes of the [[indigenous peoples of the Americas]] used shells for [[wampum]] and [[hair pipe]]s.<ref>[[John C. Ewers|Ewers, John C.]] "[http://www.sil.si.edu/DigitalCollections/BAE/Bulletin164/section2.htm#Shell%20hp Hair Pipes in Plains Indian Adornment] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071201173655/http://www.sil.si.edu/DigitalCollections/BAE/Bulletin164/section2.htm#Shell%20hp |date=1 December 2007 }}", ''Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 164'', pp. 29–85.  United States Government Printing Office, Washington : 1957.</ref> The Native American ''[[wampum]] belts'' were made of the shell of the [[quahog]] clam.