Rings of shells

We say "hunter-gatherer" and have a picture of a subsistence society. They may be nomads, or migrate with the seasons or with droughts, but not much otherwise.

But with some hunting and gathering skills, and enough of a surplus, why couldn't somebody travel, e.g. for trade?

Science News says a grave site shows signs of not just trade but people's customs reaching from Superior to Georgia--and possibly the people themselves. The article says that this kind of interconnection was supposed to have only begun about 2000 years ago, but the Georgia site is 2000 years before that.

Trade and travel might have come and gone over millenia, with the fall and rise of unfriendly cultures along the routes. Or bad harvests that cut down on surplus food for travel reserve.

I'm not at all well versed in the various American Indian stories. I wonder which cultures have stories of traders. They'd be fairly recent stories, not 4000 years old, but they might shed a little light on how long distance trade might have been done.