Dentalium shell

The word dentalium, as commonly used by Native American artists and anthropologists, refers to tooth shells or tusk shells used in indigenous jewelry, adornment, and commerce in western Canada and the United States. These tusk shells are a kind of seashell, specifically the shells of scaphopod mollusks. The name "dentalium" is based on the scientific name for the genus Dentalium, but because the taxonomy has changed over time, not all of the species used are still placed in that genus; however, all of the species are certainly in the family Dentaliidae.^[1]

Dentalium shells were used by Inuit, First Nations, and Native Americans as an international trade item. This usage is found along the western coast of Canada and along the Pacific Ocean coast of the northwest United States^[2] extending southward to Southern California. Traditionally, the shells of Antalis pretiosa (previously known as Dentalium pretiosum, the precious dentalium (a species which occurs from Alaska to Baja California) were harvested from deep waters around the Pacific Northwest coast of North America, especially off the coast of Vancouver Island.^[3] Today most dentalium shells in the shell trade are smaller, more brittle, and are harvested from coasts off Asia — i.e. they are shells of Indo-Pacific species of scaphopods.