Mfcttrf

Once the colonial era began around 1500 or 1600, Europeans and Native Americans started trading. As far as I'm aware, the principal trade was beaver pelts in exchange for iron axes.

But I'm interested in trade amongst the Native Americans themselves, before the colonial era. Did any trade go on? If so, what was it? It seems like each tribe could make whatever it wanted from the materials nearby, so I am very interested in the trade situation or lack thereof.

Note, I'm also aware of some Icelanders coming to Canada around the year 1000. Not really interested in that either, as far as this question is concerned. Only care about tribe-to-tribe trade of Native Americans.

Flint points, obsidian, buffalo hides, seashells and (as mentioned by T.E.D) copper were among item traded by the Plains Indians before Europeans arrived.

From Trade Among Tribes: Commerce on the Plains before Europeans Arrived by Samuel Western (Wyoming State Historical Society), our two main sources of this trade come from archaeology and from accounts of the first European traders to reach various regions.

From archaeology,

Indians of the southern and northern Plains traded with each other for
thousands of years. Flint points 13,000 years old, chiseled from the
Texas quarries, have been found in eastern New Mexico. Quarried stone
from the Obsidian Cliffs near Mammoth Hot Springs, Wyo. in Yellowstone
Park, traveled to the the Ohio River Valley around 100-350 CE.

.....

Archeological artifacts do suggest...that native-to-native trade
expanded over time. Emory Dean Keoke and Kay Marie Porterfield,
authors of the Encyclopedia of American Indian Contributions to the
World, say that the Hohokam tribe, centered in present day Arizona,
traded seashells, which they had acquired from the Mojave tribe, for
buffalo hides from various southern Plains tribes. “By between 500 and
200 B.C., North American Indians had established a vital network of
trade.”

Also,

A research team including Matthew Sanger, assistant professor of
anthropology at Binghamton University, State University at New York,
has found a copper band that indicates ancient Native Americans
engaged in extensive trade networks spanning far greater distances
than what has been previously thought.

The researchers found that the band was made from copper that

originated in the Great Lakes region, more than 1,500 km away. Copper
sources each have their own unique chemical makeup, including very
small amounts of trace elements. As such, archaeologists can match
manufactured objects to their sources by comparing their chemical
signatures,...

Accounts of early European traders are also a valuable source of information as

artists who visited the upper Missouri and Rocky Mountains in the
1830s noticed tribes hanging onto traditions or only selectively using
European goods.

The addition of European goods did not suddenly change Native American trading habits, although it should also be pointed out that tribes sometimes acquired European goods from other tribes (i.e. without meeting Europeans themselves). Tribes

tapped Wyoming’s abundant natural resources for desired trade goods:
quartzite or obsidian for knives, scrapers and arrowheads; buffalo for
robes, dried meat, pemmican and hides; soapstone for bowls; elk or
deer for tanned hides; and horn, particularly from the bighorn sheep,
for making bows, which were highly desired.

"Trade links among northern Plains tribes about 1775, before the arrival of Europeans. Courtesy W. Raymond Wood." Source: WyoHistory.org

Western notes that:

The Shoshone, it seems, traded with everyone, including northwest and
southwest tribes. Other Rocky Mountain and central Plains tribes also
took goods to the Missouri River valley to trade for corn, pumpkin,
squash and native-grown tobacco (Nicotiana quadrivalvis, Pursh)...

Over time, European goods were traded alongside / in exchange for local products:

Corn also appealed to former woodland tribes. “For the Sioux, corn was
more important than blood,” says James P. Ronda, professor of Western
American History at the University of Tulsa. In August, “as in every
other late summer and early fall, Sioux bands flocked to the Arikara
towns, bringing meat, fat, and hides from the plains and
European-manufactured goods from the Dakota Rendezvous.”