Just before European contact and also a minimum of 1500 years ago native peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands generated barrel-shaped and discoid shell beads, alongside perforated small whole shells. The earliest beads are much larger when contrasted to later grains as well as those of wampum, by having hand pierced holes. The use of the additional slender drills a great deal enhanced drilling.

"Wampum" is a Wampanoag term referring to the white shells of the channeled whelk husk. The term now describes each those and the purple beads from quahog clamshells. Wampum workshops were located with the Narragansett tribe, an Algonquian individual found along the southern New England coast. The Narragansett tribal grain creators were buried by having wampum goods and tools to finish work in development in the afterlife.

Narragansett favored teardrop-shaped covering pendants, as well as the claw pendants made of purple layer were used by Iroquois in the Hudson Valley, around the Connecticut Waterway.