Poor Essenes?

On the same month the Shrine of the Book was reopened, an interesting article in Ha'aretz quotes two Israeli archaeologists, Yuval Peleg and Itzhak Magen, who claim the Essenes could not have written the Dead Sea Scrolls -- because they were not poor, after all. They base their claim on "numerous pieces of jewelry, imported glass and expensive stone cosmetics containers" they found in the Qumran caves, although others say they were perhaps left there by Roman soldiers -- or, according to a letter to Paleojudaica, left there at a later period.