Regional Interactions between California and the Southwest: The Western Edge of the North American Continental System

Abstract

The first few centuries of the second millennium saw drastic changes in Coastal California and the American Southwest. In both areas, systems of internal trade intensified, and social systems sped down a path of increasing complexity. Following Peter Peregrine and Stephen Lekson (2006Lekson ( , 2012, we do not believe that these neighboring developments were purely coincidental. Rather, we see California and the Southwest as components in a continental-wide interaction system spanning both North and Central America. We argue that prehistoric interaction between the two regions was regular and sustained and that economic or political developments in one area are likely to have had important implications in the other. Specifically, we outline archaeological and ethnohistoric evidence for the trade of goods between the two areas, with shell beads and asphaltum moving east from coastal California in exchange for Southwestern ceramics and textiles. Rather than seeing each area as a case study in autochthonous social development, we argue that a regional synthesis of economic interactions and connectivity will build toward a better understanding of social changes in both regions. [world systems theory, trade and exchange, North America] RESUMEN Durante los primeros siglos del segundo milenio muchos cambios importantes ocurrieron en las regiones representadas por la Costa de California y el Suroeste de los Estados Unidos. En estas dos regiones, los sistemas de intercambio se intensificaron, y los sistemas sociales se desarrollaron en una ruta de complejidad creciente. Siguiendo el trabajo de Peter Peregrine y Stephen Lekson (2006Lekson ( , 2012 nosotros no creemos que estos desarrollos sean una coincidencia. Por el contrario, vemos a California y el Suroeste como componentes en un sistema de interacción continental que abarca todo Centroamérica y América del Norte. Debatimos que la interacción prehistórica entre las dos regiones era regular y sostenida, y que los desarrollos económicos o políticos en una de loś areas probablemente haya tenido consecuencias importantes en la otra. Específicamente, describimos la evidencia arqueológica y etnohistórica sobre intercambio entre las dosáreas, con cuentas de conchas y asfalto moviéndose hacia el este desde la costa de California, a cambio de cerámica y textiles desde el Suroeste. Debatimos que una síntesis regional de las interacciones económicas puede construir una mejor comprensión del desarrollo y cambio social en ambas regiones. [teoría del sistema-mundo, comercio e intercambio, arqueología de América del Norte]

Archaeogenomic evidence from the southwestern US points to a pre-Hispanic scarlet macaw breeding colony

“…Archaeogenomic analyses of scarlet macaws were used to help resolve long-standing questions regarding the origins and acquisition of these exotic birds at SW archaeological sites. The early 900-1200 CE presence of these macaws, far outside of their endemic Neotropical range, along with studies demonstrating the exchange of cacao, marine shell, and copper bells (20,22,(46)(47)(48) over similar periods, indicate significant and long-standing interactions between Mesoamerican societies and the native peoples of the SW/NW.…”

“…The appearance of scarlet macaws (Ara macao cyanoptera) in some parts of the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico (SW/NW) between 900 and 1200 CE co-occurs with the emergence of larger settlements in Chaco and in the Mimbres region than was typical in the broader SW (excluding the Hohokam region; Fig. 1), increased interaction with Mesoamerica and California (18), and the emergence of more complex societies in parts of the SW (17,(19)(20)(21)(22)(23). The immense costs involved in procuring macaws over long geographical and social distances, along with other exogenous items and products including cacao, copper bells, marine shell/bracelets, and distinct ceramic vessels, may have both contributed to and were products of emergent sociopolitical complexity in Chaco Canyon (19,21).…”

Shell Money

“…When we use money to buy groceries, pay for a meal at a restaurant, or collect salaries in return for labor, we exploit money's ability to facilitate exchange in economic systems larger than the household. Although the idea that money developed directly from barter economies has now largely been discredited (Graeber, 2011, see previous section), the ethnographic and archaeological record indicates that many different goods and commodities were used throughout our past as media of exchange, especially in places with heavy and sustained trade across boundaries and between regions (Baron & Millhauser, 2021;Gamble, 2020;Powell, 1996;Smith & Fauvelle, 2015). Some of these commodity-exchange systems took on other functions of money, expanding the economic capacities of the societies that used them within and outside of household and village groups.…”

“…In the premodern world, shell beads were second only to metal coins in the scale and intensity of their economic use and circulation. On the Pacific coast of North America, millions of diminutive Olivella beads were drilled from the thickest portion of the shell and traded across the American West, where many Indigenous cultures used them as a trade currency (Gamble, 2020;Smith & Fauvelle, 2015). In the Indian ocean, cowrie shells from the Maldives were traded across Asia and Africa to the extent that the classical Chinese character for money (貝 bèi) represents a stylized cowrie shell (Yang, 2018).…”

Pachuca Obsidian Blades from the U.S. Southwest: Implications for Mesoamerican Connections and Coronado's Mexican Indian Allies

“…One fallout of the Spanish invasion of Mesoamerica was the interaction and trade between disparate groups on the North American continent that may never have met before that time, including when people in what is now the U.S. Southwest and Northwest Mexico (SW/NW) encountered the Spanish and their Mexican Indian allies in 1540. Even before Spanish arrival, however, SW/NW groups had an extensive interaction and trading network on the continent (Smith and Fauvelle 2015; Vokes and Gregory 2007).…”