Mesoamerican-Mississippian interaction across the far Southern Plains by long-range Toyah intermediaries

Abstract

The notion of interaction between Mesoamerica and Eastern North America has long endured despite the lack of clearly defined pathways through which such ties might have occurred. In 1948, archaeologist Alex Krieger theorized two possible overland interaction routes, one designated the Gilmore Corridor through the interior Gulf Coastal Plain and another across the Southern Plains and through the American Southwest. A review of the current data fails to support the Gilmore Corridor but provides comparatively robust evidence for the alternative route through the Southern Plains. Using archaeological, archaeobotanical, and historical datasets, this paper suggests the Toyah Corridor served as an economic conduit for movement of things and ideas from Mesoamerica through the American Southwest and thence via long-range cultural intermediaries to Eastern North America. Other interaction networks in earlier times and other geographies were likely, but this corridor perhaps presents one of the more substantiated avenues based on the cumulative evidence. The theorized connection reveals economic processes and thereby sets up archaeological expectations for Mesoamerican and Mississippian interaction across the Plains and at either end.