# Aztec-North American Indian pre-Columbian contact **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 9, 2012, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aztec-north-american-indian-pre-columbian-contact/608943 "2012-01-09T18:05:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![whc.03grady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a6a055/32.png) [@whc.03grady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whc.03grady)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2012, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aztec-north-american-indian-pre-columbian-contact/608943/1 "2012-01-09T18:05:09Z")
Is anything known about how aware the Aztecs were of the peoples in North America, or vice versa? It seems it might be hard to escape noticing that a big, literate culture lives next door, but maybe the Sonoran and Chihuahuan Deserts were big enough obstacles to such contact. And maybe the Aztecs weren’t of an imperialistic mind and didn’t care what was beyond the desert? But then, it seems there are similarities (to my untrained eye, anyway) between Mesoamericans and some of the tribes of the American Southwest–a vaguely similar artistic sense, sophisticated calendars (which I’m assuming the Plains Indians didn’t have). So anyway: is there any reason to believe that in, say, 1200 AD the aboriginal people of Texas knew about the big civilization(s) in what is now central Mexico? ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2012, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aztec-north-american-indian-pre-columbian-contact/608943/2 "2012-01-09T19:35:11Z")
The only good reason to cross territories that may be hostile is trade. Any evidence of trade, caravans, etc? Of course, a lack of beasts of burden (other than women) would severely limit caravan-type trade. Were there any valuable items to trade? (Tin and bronze, for example, were common trade goods in Europe and the mediterranean at about the same development point.) They also lacked money equivalents, it seems, so there was no convenient medium of exchange to simplify trade. Unless there’s a need to go exploring for or obtain rare goods, why would finding out about anything other than your immediate neighbours be necessary? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2012, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aztec-north-american-indian-pre-columbian-contact/608943/3 "2012-01-09T20:04:07Z")
There’s evidence of trade across large regions of North America, with goods ending up tousands of miles from where they were produced. The pyramids of Cahokia, although built of earth rather than stone, seem to imply a knowledge of monumental architecture elsewhere. > **[Cahokia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cahokia)** > > The Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site /kəˈhoʊkiə/ (11 MS 2) is the site of a pre-Columbian Native American city (which existed c. 1050–1350 CE) directly across the Mississippi River from present-day St. Louis, Missouri. This historic park lies in south-western Illinois between East St. Louis and Collinsville. The park covers 2,200 acres (890 ha), or about 3.5 square miles (9 km2), and contains about 80 manmade mounds, but the ancient city was much larger. At its apex around 1100 CE, the Cahok... > **[Pre-Columbian era](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Columbian_era)** > > In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era spans from the original settlement of North and South America in the Upper Paleolithic period through European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. Usually, the era covers the history of Indigenous cultures until significant influence by Europeans. This may have occurred decades or even centuries after Columbus for certain cultures. > Many pre-Columbian civilizations were marked by permanent settlements, cities,... It’s not relevant as evidence (and I suspect it’s history is grossly inaccurate today – I haven’t seen it in ages), but the 1963 movie **Kings of the Sun** is about such intra-American contacts: > **[Kings of the Sun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kings_of_the_Sun)** > > Kings of the Sun is a 1963 DeLuxe Color film directed by J. Lee Thompson for Mirisch Productions set in Mesoamerica at the time of the conquest of Chichen Itza by Hunac Ceel. Location scenes filmed in Mazatlán and Chichen Itza. The film marks the second project Thompson completed with Yul Brynner within a year — the other being Taras Bulba. > Balam (George Chakiris) is the son of the ruler of a Mayan city-state whose people use wooden swords (with obsidian edges). His father is killed in battle ag... ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2012, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aztec-north-american-indian-pre-columbian-contact/608943/4 "2012-01-09T20:15:52Z")
The Aztecs themselves allegedly believed that their ancestors were Chichimecs from the SW of the present-day US. However, they contrasted themselves at the height of their power with the Chichimecs, whom they considered barbarians. ---
**Author:** ![MikeS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MikeS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeS)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2012, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aztec-north-american-indian-pre-columbian-contact/608943/5 "2012-01-09T20:16:04Z")
My impression is that it’s pretty well-established that [turquoise](http://lostworlds.org/turquoise-suggests-new-trade-routes-between-ancient-america-and-mexico/) was traded between the American Southwest and the Mesoamerican civilizations, so at the very least there was a chain of intermediaries stretching between the two areas (i.e., the Mayans knew some guys over the mountains who knew some guys across the river who knew some guys across some other mountains who knew the Anasazi, or something like that.) ---
**Author:** ![ThisOneGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@ThisOneGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThisOneGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2012, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aztec-north-american-indian-pre-columbian-contact/608943/6 "2012-01-09T20:19:43Z")
There is substantial evidence of trade between the pueblo peoples of the four corners region and the cultures further south. One common trade item was tropical bird feathers, and in Chaco Canyon, actual live macaws. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2012, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aztec-north-american-indian-pre-columbian-contact/608943/7 "2012-01-09T20:27:37Z")
[Some archeologists think that a site in Georgia was built by Mayans](http://www.examiner.com/architecture-design-in-national/massive-1-100-year-old-maya-site-discovered-georgia-s-mountains). > [@](#): > > The earliest maps show the name Itsate, for both a native village at Sautee and another five miles away at the location of the popular resort of Helen, GA. Itsate is what the Itza Mayas called themselves. Also, among all indigenous peoples of the Americas, only the Itza Mayas and the ancestors of the Creek Indians in Georgia built five-side earthen pyramids as their principal mounds. It was commonplace for the Itza Maya to sculpt a hill into a pentagonal mound. There are dozens of such structures in Central America. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2012, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aztec-north-american-indian-pre-columbian-contact/608943/8 "2012-01-09T20:52:03Z")
I’ve heard that the language of the Mandans (in what is now South Dakota) is related to the language of the Aztecs. I’m not sure how reliable that is, though. ---
**Author:** ![whc.03grady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a6a055/32.png) [@whc.03grady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whc.03grady)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2012, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aztec-north-american-indian-pre-columbian-contact/608943/9 "2012-01-09T21:50:25Z")
All very interesting, thank you. The point about the lack of pack animals is well-taken, and I suspect to be another major factor (besides the deserts). As for the question, “why would finding out about anything other than your immediate neighbours be necessary?” I just try to imagine myself as a Plains Indian, having heard that there are people far to the South who live in a huge city with buildings (what’s a building? like a big stone tipi or something, I guess) and countless other people, who can fashion all these fancy things out of stone and whatever else. I’d be so curious, I might be tempted to gather a few other guys together and scout it out. It would seem so unreal I’d want to check it out. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2012, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aztec-north-american-indian-pre-columbian-contact/608943/10 "2012-01-09T22:08:19Z")
[Uto-Aztecan Languages](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uto-Aztecan_languages). The Mandan, FWIW, are Siouan; the Creek Muskogean. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2012, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aztec-north-american-indian-pre-columbian-contact/608943/11 "2012-01-09T22:36:27Z")
Mesoamerican cultures had a pretty extensive trading network. Some, probably including the Aztecs, traded along the coast as far south as Panama. A now-extinct group in western Caribbean Panama supposedly spoke an Aztecan language. ---
**Author:** ![chacoguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@chacoguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chacoguy)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2012, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aztec-north-american-indian-pre-columbian-contact/608943/12 "2012-01-09T23:15:03Z")
> [@ThisOneGuy](#): > > There is substantial evidence of trade between the pueblo peoples of the four corners region and the cultures further south. One common trade item was tropical bird feathers, and in Chaco Canyon, actual live macaws. What he said. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2012, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aztec-north-american-indian-pre-columbian-contact/608943/13 "2012-01-09T23:20:55Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Mesoamerican cultures had a pretty extensive trading network. Some, probably including the Aztecs, traded along the coast as far south as Panama. A now-extinct group in western Caribbean Panama supposedly spoke an Aztecan language. The Nahua people, in the San Salvador area of El Salvador, are the descendants of Aztecs who moved there from Mexico centuries ago. They still speak a form of the Nahuatl language like back in Mexico. ---
**Author:** ![checkedible](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90db22/32.png) [@checkedible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/checkedible)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2012, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aztec-north-american-indian-pre-columbian-contact/608943/14 "2012-01-09T23:33:14Z")
North American people at Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon have been found to drink cocoa about the time you’re talking about. > [@](#): > > The residues, found on pottery shards excavated from a large pueblo (called Pueblo Bonito) in Chaco Canyon in northwestern New Mexico, suggest the practice of drinking chocolate had traveled from what is now Mexico to the American Southwest by about 1,000 years ago. > > …Since the cacao plant is tropical and can’t be grown in New Mexico and other places in the United States, the researchers think the chocolate beans came from Mesoamerica, with the closest source being about 1,240 miles (2,000 km) away from the Chaco site. I have read elsewhere that cacao beans were used as currency in the absence of standard metal coins, in South America, and that this is believed by a few archaeologists to have reached as far as some parts of the Northern American continent. Not sure how universal/accepted the NA theory is. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2012, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aztec-north-american-indian-pre-columbian-contact/608943/15 "2012-01-09T23:42:02Z")
Were any of the pre-Columbians coastal seafaring traders, like the Greeks and the Phoenicians in the Mediterranean? And if not, how come that type of culture never evolved? ---
**Author:** ![checkedible](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90db22/32.png) [@checkedible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/checkedible)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2012, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aztec-north-american-indian-pre-columbian-contact/608943/16 "2012-01-09T23:50:28Z")
Update: It seems, very accepted. Arizona has also yielded extensive evidence of cacao trade. > [@](#): > > “That is what made me think everybody is drinking this, there must be an incredible amount of trade bringing this stuff up,” Dorothy Washburn said. What’s interesting is that there was more evidence of cocoa drinking in the households of ordinary people. They just couldn’t get enough! And it is believed turquoise was the exchange item of choice, for those delicious beans… ---
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aztec-north-american-indian-pre-columbian-contact/608943/17 "2012-01-10T00:07:16Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Were any of the pre-Columbians coastal seafaring traders, like the Greeks and the Phoenicians in the Mediterranean? And if not, how come that type of culture never evolved? Yes. For example, the Mayan city of Tulum on the Yucatan peninsula was a major trading port. > **[Tulum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulum)** > > Tulum (.mw-parser-output .IPA-label-small{font-size:85%}.mw-parser-output .references .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .infobox .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .navbox .IPA-label-small{font-size:100%}Spanish pronunciation: \[tuˈlun\], Yucatec Maya: Tulu'um) is the site of a pre-Columbian Mayan walled city which served as a major port for Coba, in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo. The ruins are situated on 12-meter-tall (39 ft) cliffs along the east coast of the Yucatán Peninsula on the Car Th... > [@](#): > > Both coastal and land routes converged at Tulum which is apparent by the number of artifacts found in or near the site that show contacts with areas all over Central Mexico and Central America. Copper artifacts from the Mexican highlands have been found near the site, as have flint artifacts, ceramics, incense burners, and gold objects from all over the Yucatán. Salt and textiles were among some of the goods brought to Tulum by sea that would then be dispersed inland. Typical exported goods included feathers and copper objects that came from inland sources. These goods could be transported by sea to rivers such as the Río Motagua and the Río Usumacincta/Pasión system that could be taken inland giving seafaring canoes access to both the highlands and the lowlands. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aztec-north-american-indian-pre-columbian-contact/608943/18 "2012-01-10T01:49:50Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Were any of the pre-Columbians coastal seafaring traders, like the Greeks and the Phoenicians in the Mediterranean? And if not, how come that type of culture never evolved? There was some coastal trade at least along the Atlantic coast of Middle America. As I mentioned, Mesoamericans traded south at least as far as Panama. On his fourth voyage, Columbus encountered a large trading canoe filled with goods off the coast of Honduras. If he had gone in the direction it was headed, he probably would have found the Mayans and Aztecs. Instead he headed south, because that’s where he thought he would find the Straits of Malacca. The Incas used balsa wood rafts with sails, of the kind made famous by Thor Heyerdahl’s _Kon-Tiki_, off the Pacific coast of South America. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aztec-north-american-indian-pre-columbian-contact/608943/19 "2012-01-10T02:40:10Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > There’s evidence of trade across large regions of North America, with goods ending up tousands of miles from where they were produced. The pyramids of Cahokia, although built of earth rather than stone, seem to imply a knowledge of monumental architecture elsewhere. … > [@Johanna](#): > > [Some archeologists think that a site in Georgia was built by Mayans](http://www.examiner.com/architecture-design-in-national/massive-1-100-year-old-maya-site-discovered-georgia-s-mountains). Actually newest thinking is that the mound builders of North America [preceded](http://www.sciencemag.org/content/334/6063/1620.summary) the Mayans and the monumental architecture elsewhere. > [@the other side of the Science wall](#): > > … Did the Middle Archaic mounds and Poverty Point influence the rise of Mesoamerican civilization? The question tantalizes archaeologists. The proportions used at the Louisiana sites closely match those found in Mesoamerica, notes John Clark, a Mesoamerican specialist at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. By examining the alignments of Archaic mounds, retired civil engineer Robert Patten argued at a recent conference on archaeo-astronomy that the numbers associated with the sites are mirrored in later Mesoamerican calendars as well as in the design of structures. The origin of the Mesoamerican system “should be searched for in a vast area between the Mississippi River Basin and Mesoamerica,” he says. Clark agrees: “We need to look to Louisiana as a source.” > > Mesoamericans may have used the plaza-and-pyramid innovation to help create a more complex social organization and to jump-start urban life. … ---
**Author:** ![florez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b9e5f3/32.png) [@florez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/florez)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aztec-north-american-indian-pre-columbian-contact/608943/20 "2012-01-10T03:14:17Z")
> [@whc.03grady](#): > > Is anything known about how aware the Aztecs were of the peoples in North America, or vice versa? > So anyway: is there any reason to believe that in, say, 1200 AD the aboriginal people of Texas knew about the big civilization(s) in what is now central Mexico? My understanding from Chicano studies years ago was that the Mexica, who eventually became the dominant people of the Aztec Empire came from a region in the Northwest known as the place of Herons-Aztlan. Some weather thing or clan disagreement caused the migration southward around A.D. 1111. So it seems the Aztecs had some history along the way, staying in different places, maybe even for generations, but still driven on to find their new homeland ( which would be signified by the sign of an eagle perched atop a cactus which was growing out of a rock . The eagle would be holding a snake in his mouth). They found this sign at Tenochtitlan and prospered there, but they were warrriors and militaristic expansion followed, with alot of conquering of adjacent areas. So I imagine that alot of the once independent states were not cool with the Aztecs and tributes like taxes were imposed. So maybe when people thought of the great empire they also felt fear of it, or wished they could avoid it, or wanted to destroy it. And, of course the Spanish came along and helped them to just that. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aztec-north-american-indian-pre-columbian-contact/608943.md?page=2)