Theres lots of study of pottery redistribution between Anasazi sites — often involving considerable quantities of pottery and large distances. What motivated this?
the first thing to clarify is that pottery did not move very frequently across the Anasazi region, with the one major exception of pottery that was imported into Chaco Canyon. It would be inappropriate, therefore, to call pottery exchange in the Southwest a form of “redistribution,” in which pottery or whatever else is collected at one location and then redistributed back out again. That didn’t happen in the Anasazi southwest. Instead, pottery and other stuff went to Chaco Canyon and stayed there, which supports the contention that Chaco was a pilgrimage center, with pilgrims bringing a pot or two, perhaps filled with grain or turquoise or whatever, and then leaving their offerings in the canyon, taking nothing material in return. It does seem inefficient to carry grain around in pottery, although that’s how corn was stored, so perhaps the pilgrims, before leaving home, picked up one of their storage pots filled with corn, secured it in a pack, and then hiked up to Chaco Canyon. Chaco
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