Fragments of artifacts made from similar fine-grained redstone have been found at other Caborn-Welborn sites and have been identified as catlinite. This material was possibly traded from a source area in southern Minnesota.

Redstone pipes more than three times larger than Hovey Lake site pipe (3.75cm diameter disk) have been reported from other Caborn-Welborn villages. The disk pipe form is most common among the Oneota cultures of the Upper Mississippi Valley, in
Iowa, Wisconsin, and Illinois, and rare elsewhere in the Midwest, except in the Caborn-Welborn culture.

Trade in redstone/catlinite was part of a system of exchange of high quality materials that flourished in the Midwest around A.D. 1450-1650. Other trade included finished products and raw materials - ceramic vessels, marine shell ornaments, pieces of fluorite and galena, and large blanks or finished hoe blades of chert.