WUPATKI PUEBLO: A STUDY IN CULTURAL FUSION AND ...

to the Southwest, and more recently Colton has defined two
major routes from the Pacific Coast9 mainly on.the basis of
shell artifacts. One passed along a path running from Los
Angeles to the New Mexico country, paralleling, in general,
Highway 66, This ran from the Coast to Needles, then along
3**8
the Hogolion rim to the Flagstaff area. Another route passed
from San Diego to the junction of the Gila and the Colorado,
and up the Gila to the Salt, branching there up the Verde
-River, which led either to the plateau near Flagstaff, the
gateway to the Anasazi country, or to the Little Colorado
Elver system, leading to the Zuni and Rio Grande Pueblo region.
Along these two routes, trading parties of coastal California,
Mojave, Havasupai, Walapai, Hopl, Zuni, and Rio Grande peoples
were active, linked in a network of trade relationships in
operation at least by early Spanish times, and quite probably
long before (Colton 19^1: 308-9# 317)*
Mojave and luman groups along the Colorado and at the
Colorado Delta served as the middle men in this activity in
early Spanish times, maintaining trading routes across the
deserts to the California coast. This was clearly an ancient
route, for Hohokam pottery and axe types have turned up in early
California sites, and Spanish explorers as early as 1539 saw
evidence of close trading relationships extending at least
200 miles east from the coast* However, some of the early
trade may have been initiated by the northern Sonoran tribes