Southeastern Tribes.

Like the Indians of the Northeast, the indigenous peoples of southeastern North America had engaged in widespread, long-distance trade for thousand of years before the arrival of Europeans. Tribes such as the Catawbas, Algonkins, Cofitachequi, and Chicaza participated extensively in both regional, intertribal commerce—which centered largely on the exchange of goods between inland and coastal tribes—and in the larger continental trade. Southeastern commerce, however, differed from northeastern bartering in one important regard: during the Mississippian period the South witnessed the rise of several large cities that served as important commercial centers.

Initial Networks.

The Indians of the Southeast engaged extensively in intertribal trading as far back as the Woodland period (1000 B.C.). Archaeological evidence suggests strongly that this trade was closely related to the widespread practice of mortuary ceremonialism, wherein luxury goods and prestige items were interred in...