answers: the Maya
context: good linked to Chichen Itza and market distribution (Braswell et al. 2011). The Maya used several different mediums of exchange and in the trading of food commodities the barter system was typically used for large orders. Cacao beans were used for everyday exchange in postclassic times. For more expensive purchases gold, jade and copper were used as a means of exchange. However, these mediums of exchange are not "money" in the modern sense, in different sites and cities, these mediums of exchange were valued differently. Because of the readily available trade resources and local merchants in most of the Maya </s> region of Coixtlahuaca and large parts of Oaxaca, and later again in central and southern Veracruz with conquests at Cosamalopan, Ahuilizapan and Cuetlaxtlan. During this period the city states of Tlaxcalan, Cholula and Huexotzinco emerged as major competitors to the imperial expansion, and they supplied warriors to several of the cities conquered. Motecuzoma therefore initiated a state of low-intensity warfare against these three cities, staging minor skirmishes called "Flower Wars" (Nahuatl "xochiyaoyotl") against them, perhaps as a strategy of exhaustion. Motecuzoma also consolidated the political structure of the Triple Alliance, and the internal political organization of Tenochtitlan. His brother Tlacaelel </s> of Mexico was the heart of dense population and the rise of city-states. The Mexica were late-comers to the Valley of Mexico, and founded the city-state of Tenochtitlan on unpromising islets in Lake Texcoco, later becoming the dominant power of the Aztec Triple Alliance or Aztec Empire. It was a tributary empire that expanded its political hegemony far beyond the Valley of Mexico, conquering other city states throughout Mesoamerica in the late post-classic period. It originated in 1427 as an alliance between the city-states Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan; these allied to defeat the Tepanec state of Azcapotzalco, which had previously
question: who would the aztecs have traded with and why