They were more than a thousand miles from the Aztec cities they'd conquered, but when the Spanish arrived in what's now the Southwest, similarities were what they noticed. Maize farming, painted ceramics, village societies – this was a “new Mexico.”

The connection between the Puebloan world and Mesoamerica is hotly debated in archeology. What does it mean that cacao – chocolate from the tropics – was consumed at Chaco Canyon, in the Four Corners? Or that both the Maya and the Mimbres, of New Mexico, told stories of the “warrior twins,” who journeyed through the underworld and challenged the forces of death?

The U.S.-Mexico border has no bearing on what people were doing ... Hosted by for KRTS