“The Southwest cities traded with the cities to the south. Thus, there was wide spread commerce that crosses the artificial present border with Mexico.”
Well, I have read that linguists find links in some southwest tribal languages to very ancient precursors to both their languages and some languages south of the Rio Grande - suggesting very ancient migration from north to south.
But, in terms of contemporaries of the peoples around Mexico City such as the Mexticas and the later Aztecs, their social and “civilizing” sphere of influence is documented to NOT have extended much more than a couple hundred miles north of Mexico City. Suggesting some trade with north of the Rio Grande? Yes. Wide spread? No.
So please site some evidence of the “wide spread commerce” you speak of.
“The key fact un mentioned is the source of the copper. Did it come from Tennessee or from Arizona?”
The likely source for the copper used at Cahokia (southern Illinois) is the ancient large copper deposits in Michigan. The “highways” for that trade would have been the great river systems of the Midwest - the Mississippi, Missouri, Illinois, Ohio and Tennessee rivers.
......So please site some evidence of the “wide spread commerce” you speak of......
The reference is “The History of the Ancient Southwest” by Stephen H. Lekson. This is an excellent book that deals with the history of the Anasazi, the Hohokem and the Mogollon peoples that had large populations and cities in the Colorado Plateau, the Phoenix basin and the highlands in between.
They were contemporary but separate societies and were also contemporary and known to trade with the folks at Cahokia.
His thesis is “Every body knew everything” and “Distance was not a problem”
You are correct in the people of our south west were not Aztecs but they knew of the societies further south and there was trade.
Stephen Lekson has spent his dues time in the field and his work gathers all the work of the southwestern archeologists from the beginning to the present and connects the dots. Most south western archeology work is site specific and the investigators concern themselves with their own little patch of dirt. He takes a much broader scale in both time and distance in pulling it all together.
His book consists of about 250 pages of narrative and another 250 pages of notes. He writes in a very unstuffy manner and is a joy to read. I have been reading about the area for years and find his book to hands down be the best.