Set at a natural crossroads, Pecos Pueblo became a powerful village of more than 2,000 people through trade. Its strategic location made it a meeting place for people from near and far. Native Americans traded ceremonial items such as macaw feathers from Mexico, abalone shells from the Pacific, and fresh water shells from the Great Lakes. Plains Indians came from the east bringing tools, buffalo hides, and captives for trade. Other Pueblo people came to Pecos offering ceramics, obsidian, and turquoise. In 1584, Baltazar de Obrgon wrote that Pecos Pueblo was congregated on a high and narrow hill, had the greatest and best buildings of those provinces, was most thickly settled, and was enclosed and protected by a wall and by tiers of walkways looking out on the countryside.
