In the final centuries before Europeans contact, Pre-Columbian societies from Mesoamerica to the Andes engaged in intensified commercial interaction by land and sea (e.g., Marcos 2005; Rostworowski de Díez Canesco 1970; Smith and Berdan 2003). Numerous sources refer to the use of different products as “money” by the time of the conquest. These included cacao beans, lengths of cloth, strings of spondylus shell beads, coca leaves, and others. Their values and equivalences remain unclear in many cases (see the limited list in Berdan 1975:table 1), as are the specific kinds of transactions in which they could be used. Even the spatial extent of their use remains unmapped. While many of these media of exchange might be examined in relation to coastal Pacific interaction, the copper axe-monies and their relatives stand out (Figure 10.1) (Hosler, Lechtman, and Holm 1990). These include small, often axe-shaped copper objects from parts of Mexico, Ecuador, and northern Peru. Thus, very similar objects, made by related techniques, were simultaneously found near the coasts of three distinct regions, where they were interred as burial goods, stored in caches, and used, or apparently used, as media of exchange. In combination with existing evidence for the introduction of metallurgical technology from Ecuador to Mexico (Hosler 1994), they make an a priori case for a shared definition of value and increasingly commercial interaction between these regions.

But we do not understand many features, and our discussion here revolves around the issue of these objects as “money.” We can start with the term itself, or the more neutral phrase “medium of exchange.” Decades of study by economic anthropologists have at least established that the category of “money” is far from straightforward in its definition or its impact (Hart and Ortiz 2014; Nelms and Maurer 2014). The functionally minded see money facilitating the transfer of good and services from one person to another and, consequently, as a major transformation from barter systems (Stanish and Coben 2013:424-428). Other perspectives focus on the culturally defined spheres of exchange to which all forms of money are ultimately restricted (Bohannan 1955) or the delineation of those transactional orders within which wealth-maximizing behavior is acceptable (Parry and Bloch 1989).

But the introduction of a medium of exchange from elsewhere complicates any interpretation. The introduction of a new currency may challenge existing forms or be resisted by the receiving population. Was axe-money treated as currency immediately upon its introduction, or was it adopted by the receiving population form distinct purposes such as decoration? We have no indication that axe-monies in Mesoamerica began as a commodity with an inherent use, like cacao or cloth (Baron 2018). The axes themselves are largely ineffective as tools (Hosler 1986; Hosler, Lechtman, and Holm 1990) and they had no utility that would have given them an aura of functional value. They were not introduced as a foreign material like cowry shells, glass beads, or paper currency (Şaul 2004), that would have tied locals to external suppliers. Rather, axe-monies were made in Mexico following the introduction of techniques and concepts about their use elsewhere. Presumably, they were not made by visiting foreign traders to exchange with locals since they are notably different in form and other features from those in South America, but they were more likely adopted by locals into their own trading networks and modified to fit in. Even the morphological referent varies—some Mesoamerican axe-monies resemble functional axes from that region (Hosler, Lechtman, and Holm 1990:42, 50), but other types are closer matches for the Andean tumi form.

Whatever the reasons for their introduction, axe-monies were being used in Ecuador and Mexico at the time of European contact as a medium of exchange decoupled form foreigners and their transactions. They were being paid as tribute by local people to local rulers, and they were so widely used that Spaniards accepted them and even took them to other settings where they expected to use them as currency (Glover 1990). The final centuries before the conquest, therefore, encompass a transition from foreign introduction to medium of exchange. We need to assess how we can study this transition archaeologically. How many groups manufactured axe-monies? Was axe-money backed by political entities like a modern national currency, or did its distribution cross political boundaries/ what were the mobility of exchange networks through which it traveled? How were axe-monies funneled into the caches or deposits from which they are best known? Answering these questions will begin to clarify the nature of the Postclassic Mesoamerican maritime contacts with South America but also guide our understanding of the spread of media of exchange more broadly.

In this chapter, we investigate how the Mexican copper axe-monies were crafted, distributed, and deposited to better understand their introduction and incorporation into the Mesoamerican economy. We are hindered by the absence of good chronological control but can begin to address our research questions by focusing on the variability in axe-money uses, distribution, and crafting. We review reported axe-monies and present our analysis of simultaneously deposited groups of these objects held by the Smithsonian.