For Kwäday Dän Ts’ìnchi, the presence of coastal goods — particularly the woven hat — might reflect participation in exactly this kind of cross-mountain trade network.

He might have been a trader himself, carrying goods from one side of the mountains to the other.

He might have been a person with family connections on both sides — not unusual in societies where marriage alliances deliberately created such connections.

Or he might have obtained the coastal hat through secondary trade, acquiring it from an interior contact who had obtained it from the coast.

The isotopic evidence, suggesting a diet with a substantial marine component, is harder to explain through secondary trade.