From south to north

Over a year back I got wind of the Maya being a Costa Rican people who'd migrated... and then the Huastecs migrated further. That looked to have happened along the Atlantic. Lately I've been hearing murmurs about visitation along the Pacific.

Observe, this thread, heavily footnoted. This argues that Mesoamerican bronze was a thing as of the Spanish arrival. Gary Jennings ... sort of agreed, with that. It's just that Jennings thought that bronze was known only to the Pure(m)pecha of what the Aztecs were calling "Michihuacan". It's generally assumed, further, that Tzintzuntzan independently thought it up; being a sort of new-world "Steam Engine Time".

Thesaurus Rex says: oh no. This stuff came from the Andes, AD ~1200. Moreover the Colombian Pacific had, since 100 BC, the tech to trade up the coasts avoiding the fabled Darien Gap. And they had the trade-goods: they'd used seashells. 100 BC is before much of the metallurgy so, this trade was how it was done. If you were Xinca or, later, Maya; you could trade jade and turquoise back at 'em.

As a Pacific trade, the metallurgy got to the Mesoamerican west first. Guerrero, and those Purepecha. Not quite as far as the UtoAztecan heartland.

T.R. is saying, though, that the Aztecs did know bronze. It's just that, in the Valley of Mexico and points each, bronze was expensive. The very mines were west - where the Purepecha were squatting. They weren't about to sell those particular wares for cheap (although, yes, smugglers happen). Also the Valley, like a lot of Mesoamerica, is rich in obsidian; obsidian is, yes, brittle, but it is also hard and holds an edge.

BACKDATE 12/21; 12/29 and now the bow. 3/9/24: Chocolate.