Prehistory: Trade Routes

Major trade routes often followed waterways. The Mississippi River and its tributaries allowed an exchange of coastal and inland products, and the Great Lakes traffic brought copper to the East. Cross-country routes required carrying heavy loads but were nevertheless active as well. Archaeologists studying the Hopewell mounds in Ohio (200 BCE to 400 BCE) unearthed both raw and dressed points of obsidian that could only have come from the Rocky Mountains, more than one thousand miles away. Likewise, there is early evidence of salt trade between coastal and inland agriculture-based tribes throughout the southern regions. By the time of contact, hunt-centered Plains tribes, among them the Apache, bartered with their agricultural Hopi neighbors, exchanging dried buffalo meat for corn, beans, and pumpkins. Acorns were traded for pine nuts in the Southwest and California, and throughout the South people continued to trade long distances with and for salt. Some people traded for food with currency, that is, eastern wampum, northwest dentalia shells, and clamshell disk beads of California, but most transactions involved direct barter of commodities.