Item wealth increasing for no reason?

[Shadenir]

For quite a while now, I've been trying to see how far I can get through the tech tree without my item wealth increasing to the point where I'm seeing raids with ranged weapons (around 20,000 from what I could tell over the course of about 5-8 colonies).  I've only gotten semi-serious about it in the last couple playthroughs, but I'm starting to notice that the colony wealth, specifically item wealth, is continuing to increase even though I'm not accumulating any new items.  I thought it might have to do with food supply, with the colony wealth going up as I butcher animals corpses for the meat, but then it should be going back down as my pawn then cooks and consumes those resources.  Leathers get put out to deteriorate to nothing.  The longer this playthrough has gone, the more I'm mystified by the increasing colony item wealth as no new resources are accumulated.  Right now, I'm on day 132 with an item wealth of 12261.90 with about the same amount of food and roughly the same non-food items and resources as I had on day 72 when my colony item wealth was 8289.65.  Maybe a couple extra items, but the variance for those shouldn't be more than 500-1000 points.  I'm growing increasingly frustrated by this and am hoping someone can explain what's going on.   (I don't have the skillset to dig into the code.)

[Canute]

I'm not accumulating any new items.

Maybe you just misinterprete the "item" thing.
Item's are anything that can't move by it own, not only weapons,appareal.
That include any grown food resource, butcher stuff or meals.
Even the hauled chunks into your stockpiles (for defence i assume) count toward it. But i am not 100% sure about that and all the items on the map allready count in from the beginning.
When a caravan would die at the map, your item wealth would increase, even when you didn't hauled them into the base yet.

[Shadenir]

The hauled chunks were to get them out of the way of the main walk paths and interiors.  I didn't realize those counted towards wealth, so that's somthing I was missing, cool.  Thank you.  If I delete that zone, does it stop counting them towards my wealth?

I do get that it's more than just weapons and clothes, though.  I did mention I include food supply items and textiles in what I'm considering.  I didn't realize it looks at all items on the map, including ones dropped randomly by dead people, but all of those on this map are stuff like low quality, deteriorating melee weapons, and there aren't that many of them. 

Do corpses around the map count towards colony item wealth?

[Bozobub]

I'm pretty sure corpses do not generate wealth, unless they are butchered for meat.

Note, however, that the game scales raid threat over time, not just via actual colony wealth alone.  Perhaps you are seeing this mechanism in action?

[zizard]

I've had this suspicion before and I wouldn't be surprised if there was some sort of wealth creep / leak bug.

Whether items are in stockpiles shouldn't matter. Everything on the map that isn't unclaimed counts as yours.

I thought corpses counted for wealth but I'm not sure on that one.

[Ark]

Assuming unmodded: Chunks have 0 value. Rotten or dessicated corpses have 0 value. Fresh corpses have value counting towards your wealth, depending on the creature, stockpiled or not. Fresh corpses killed by wild animals at the other side of the map count towards you wealth, too, stockpiled or not. All items, mined steel, tainted junk clothing, everything counts towards wealth, stockpiled, worn, equipped or not.