Axe-monies

Axe-monies refer to bronze artifacts found in both western Mesoamerica and the northern Andes. Based on ethnohistorical, archaeological, chemical, and metallurgical analyses, the scholars Hosler, Lechtman and Holm have argued for their use in both regions (which are separated by thousands of miles) through trade. In contrast to naipes, bow-tie- or card-shaped metal objects which appear in the archaeological record only in the northern Andean coastal region, axe-monies are found in both Mesoamerican and Andean cultural zones. More specifically, it is argued that the system of money first arose on the north coast of Peru and Ecuador in the early second millennium CE. In both regions, bronze was smelted, likely by family units, and hammered into thin, axe-shaped forms and bundled in multiples of five, usually twenty. As they are often found in burials, it is likely that in addition to their presumed economic use, they also had ceremonial value.

Prehistoric links between Mesoamerica and the Andes have been suggested on several occasions. Early Mesoamerican and Ecuadorian pottery style show some similarities, both in technique and motifs. Likewise, similarities in early burial styles (so-called "shaft tombs") present in Ecuador and western Mesoamerica have been pointed out. Even the origins of the Purépecha people in Michoacán have been suggested as lying in South America. However, none of these proposals are widely accepted by specialists. More widely accepted is the influence of South American metallurgy on Mesoamerica.

South American metallurgy itself can be divided into two traditions: one in Peru, southern Ecuador, and Bolivia, which used copper, tin, silver, gold, and arsenic in various alloys with a variety of uses; and a second in Colombia and southern Central America, the so-called Intermediate Area, which relied on gold and copper for largely artistic rather than utilitarian purposes. The metallurgical tradition of western Mesoamerica, though geographically closer to the Intermediate Zone, is much closer in form and function to the southern Ecuadorian tradition. The form and method of creating interlocking metal rings is identical in the two traditions, and even their archaeological context (placed around the cranium in burials) is remarkably similar. Fish-hooks, needles, and tweezers, also appear in both traditions. However, the wax-casting tradition of the Intermediate Area, which spread to other parts of Mesoamerica, also proved influential in the western Mesoamerican context, such as in the creation of copper-gold alloy bells.

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