Two species of cowrie shell, Monetaria moneta (Linnaeus 1758) and Monetaria annulus (Linnaeus 1758), occur repeatedly in archaeological contexts across West Africa. Despite their archaeological and ethnographic importance, these shells remain poorly and inconsistently reported in the archaeological literature. The absence of standardised data on species composition, size and condition of cowrie assemblages, and whether and how the shells were modified, make it difficult to examine their significance in a regional and/or chronological framework. To address this, we propose a standardisation of the criteria and coding used to systematically record cowrie assemblages – in particular species, size, condition and state of modification. We aim to enable non-shell specialists within the wider archaeological community to securely identify intact or intact but modified specimens of M. annulus and M. moneta, showing how these can be distinguished from four cowries native to West Africa (specifically Luria lurida (Linnaeus 1758), Zonaria zonaria (Gmelin 1791), Zonaria sanguinolenta (Gmelin 1791) and Trona stercoraria (Linnaeus 1758)) that occur in assemblages from West African sites. We demonstrate how accurate species identification and the assessment of proportions of different sizes of shells within suitably large assemblages can provide insight into their provenance, and through this enhance our appreciation of the exchange networks within which these shells moved. We also identify five different strategies documented in the archaeological record that were used to modify cowries, detailing how these can be differentiated and classified. The aim here is to suggest a recording strategy that will enable comparisons of the use and value of cowries in West Africa and more widely.

中文翻译：

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对贝壳进行编目：一种从西非考古记录中记录贝壳六种关键物种的标准化策略

两种贝壳，Monetaria moneta (Linnaeus 1758) 和 Monetaria annulus (Linnaeus 1758)，在整个西非的考古环境中反复出现。尽管在考古学和人种学上具有重要意义，但这些贝壳在考古文献中的报道仍然很差且不一致。由于缺乏关于贝壳组合的物种组成、大小和状况以及贝壳是否以及如何修改的标准化数据，因此很难在区域和/或时间顺序框架中检查它们的重要性。为了解决这个问题，我们建议对用于系统地记录贝壳组合的标准和编码进行标准化——特别是物种、大小、条件和修改状态。我们的目标是让更广泛的考古界内的非贝壳专家能够安全地识别完整或完整但经过修改的 M. annulus 和 M. moneta 标本，展示如何将这些标本与原产于西非的四种贝壳（特别是 Luria lurida (Linnaeus 1758)、Zonaria zonaria (Gmelin 1791)、Zonaria sanguinolenta (Gmelin 1791) 和 Trona stercoraria (Linnaeus 1758))，它们出现在来自西非遗址的组合中。我们展示了准确的物种识别和适当大组合内不同大小贝壳的比例评估如何可以深入了解它们的来源，并通过这增强我们对这些贝壳移动的交换网络的理解。我们还确定了考古记录中记录的五种不同的用于修改贝壳的策略，详细说明如何区分和分类这些。这里的目的是提出一种记录策略，以便能够比较西非和更广泛的贝壳的使用和价值。