Collection: Shell Jewelry

For hundreds of years, Pueblo people of the Southwest have created beads of turquoise, shell, bone, and stone. Chaco Canyon and other Ancestral Puebloan sites were at the center of major turquoise trade routes that ran from the Pacific Northwest to Central America. In addition to the shells found in the landscape of New Mexico, abalone and spiny oyster shell came to the region from the coast and were among the items traded with tribes along the trade routes. Shells have become an important element in traditional regalia and are commonly used in Native American jewelry.