The regions of early Mesoamerica were joined in a well established trade network. Using this, households obtained useful materials like stone for tools.
The emerging elite organized trade, ensuring the supply of material required for the community's religious activities, such as turtle shell drums and conch shell trumpets.
They also accumulated prestige material for themselves, to wear as insignia of rank and to deposit in their graves; the acquisition of these enhanced the prestige of the whole community.
The prosperous early Olmec were part of this system, depending on the chain of intercommunity connections to acquire distant materials. At some point this system became inadequate for their needs and they established trading outposts in the regions supplying the most highly prized commodities, such as Chalcatzingo and Teopantecuanitlan.
