ABSTRACT
More than 30 years have passed since the First Maya Lithic Conference. It might be useful, therefore, to summarize my current understanding of chert and obsidian artifacts at the major center of Tikal (Figure 1.1) as it has evolved over the last three decades. I will also discuss the lithic artifacts of Tikal within the broader context of the prehispanic Maya lowlands. A handy framework for a discussion of Tikal lithics is the use-life trajectory of artifacts rst proposed by Michael Schiffer (1972). Schiffer conceptualized the behavior associated with material culture as a trajectory of sequential stages through which all artifacts were moved from systemic or behavioural context into archaeological context: procurement, production, distribution, consumption, reworking/recycling, and nal deposition. Procurement
Most of the lithics recovered from Tikal were made of local chert. Even today, nodules of opaque chert and translucent chalcedony suitable for manufacturing tools can be collected at Tikal. Presumably stone knappers had ready access to it. Dark, ne-textured cherts from as yet unknown sources are found in contexts dating to as early as the early Late Preclassic period (ca. 400-150 B.C.) in the form of rare, stemmed thin bifaces (projectile points; Moholy-Nagy 2003a:7, Table 2.24). A few heavily reworked tanged macroblades in tan, banded chert (Moholy-Nagy 2003a: Figures 46j-47) were probably imported as nished artifacts from Colha, Belize. They may have been brought to Tikal only during the Late Preclassic and Early Classic periods. A better understanding of patterns of lowland chert procurement and exchange will develop once the difculties in determining sources by instrument have been worked out. All of the obsidian brought to Tikal had undergone some degree of working. About a dozen small, unworked nodules of dark glassy material rst thought to be obsidian have since been identied as tektites (Hildebrandt 2003; Moholy-Nagy 2003a; Figure 120a).
