# was turquoise a key good/money at Chaco Canyon?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-turquoise-a-key-good-money-at-chaco-canyon/791124>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [July 12, 2017, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-turquoise-a-key-good-money-at-chaco-canyon/791124 "2017-07-12T20:24:48Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\
**Post date:** [July 12, 2017, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-turquoise-a-key-good-money-at-chaco-canyon/791124/1 "2017-07-12T20:24:48Z")

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I was reading about the archeological site at [Pueblo Bonito/Chaco Canyon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pueblo_Bonito), New Mexico and learned there were stashes of thousands of pieces of turquoise found there. It also said they engaged in long distance trade with Mesoamerica for chocolate in exchange for their turquoise. This made me think that turquoise bits were probably an everyday money like gold and silver in other areas. What we’d see in the ruins are just the stashes that people forgot about or got lost. Or that were interred with dead people. So there likely would have been a lot more circulating than what was found in the remains.

Does this make sense? Has anyone in the archeological community made this point or should I write it up for publication? Or is there evidence against?

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**Author:** ![chacoguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@chacoguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chacoguy)\
**Post date:** [July 12, 2017, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-turquoise-a-key-good-money-at-chaco-canyon/791124/2 "2017-07-12T20:44:35Z")

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[I found this.](http://www.kstrom.net/isk/art/beads/bonito.html) It mentions tuquoise being used as money.

[This one talks about the extenxive trade networks.](https://www.livescience.com/44703-turquoise-trade-network-revealed.html)

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**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\
**Post date:** [July 12, 2017, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-turquoise-a-key-good-money-at-chaco-canyon/791124/3 "2017-07-12T22:24:05Z")

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Thanks. My search didn’t come up with that first page, for some reason. But that answers my question.