ABSTRACT
Our volume creates an intellectual bridge between the past, present, and future of lithic artifact analysis in the Maya area. The contributions presented here result from the Third Maya Lithic Conference held in Guatemala City in 2007. The rst such conference took place in 1976 and the second in 1982 (Hester and Hammond 1976; Hester and Shafer 1991). During the quarter century since the second conference, important articles have expanded our understanding of Maya chipped stone industries, and an edited volume that focuses on Mesoamerican lithic technology was published (Hirth 2003). Nevertheless, during this time there has been an imbalance in the areal coverage provided by Maya lithic analysis, at least among work published in English. In that language, the majority of publications have discussed lithic assemblages from sites in Chiapas, northern Belize, and western Honduras. In contrast, relatively few English-language publications have focused on the chipped stone artifacts of the northern Maya lowlands, Guatemala, or El Salvador (cf. Braswell et al. 1994; Rovner et al. 1997; Sheets 2000). The dearth of English-language publications does not imply that lithic studies were not conducted in these places. In particular, signicant studies have been conducted in Guatemala, and especially by Guatemalans. Two important goals of this volume, therefore, are: (1) to create new “islands of lithic knowledge” (Sheets 1976); and (2) to bring some of those islands that are well known in Guatemala to a wider, international audience. We hope that this will reestablish discourse on chipped stone analysis that integrates both data and points of view from Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and western Honduras: the core of the Maya area. The rst two Maya Lithic Conferences focused primarily on chert artifacts. Our volume attempts to expand the material and technological scope to include chert, obsidian, silicied limestone, and
jade, as well as the techniques used to reduce these materials. We do not consider pecked and ground limestone, schist, or basalt artifacts (please see another volume in this series, Rowan and Ebeling 2008), not to mention basic architectural technologies. Nonetheless, we believe our work takes an important step towards the examination of the full range of materials and technologies associated with the working of stone in the ancient Maya world. Indeed, because of the lack of both metal and complex transportation technologies, chipped, pecked, and polished stones were among the most important technological actants that transformed ancient Maya society (Chapter 1). Worked stone tools and ornaments helped create the cityscape, were central to warfare and hunting, were key to virtually all craft and artisanal activities, were needed to process food, and were particularly important in ritual performance. The Maya shaped their world with stone artifacts. Political Economy
Studies of Mesoamerican lithic artifacts conducted during the 1960s and early 1970s often focused on objects made of obsidian, and were largely directed toward understanding procurement patterns and the distribution of specic technologies (Sheets 1976; Sidrys et al. 1976). Instrumental assay techniques such as X-ray uorescence spectrometry and neutron-activation analysis allowed archaeologists to determine the exact geological origin of an artifact. Given that natural deposits of volcanic obsidian are not found in the sedimentary Maya lowlands, chemical data made it possible to study interregional and even long-distance trade (Lee and Navarrete 1978). A second reason obsidian studies became important is that at most Maya sites, almost all material appears in the form of prismatic blades or related artifacts. The reduction of prepared prismatic blade cores is a conservative technology that produces relatively little debitage. For this reason, it is possible to develop quantitative measures of the number of cores imported to a site and the number of blades removed from them (Clark and Bryant 1997; Clark and Lee 1979; Sheets 1975; see Chapter 10). Thus, studies of obsidian exchange and craft practices provide insights on ancient Maya economic organization. The benets and opportunities provided by the analysis of obsidian artifacts created unintended biases in our interpretation of their importance to the economic systems of ancient Mesoamerica (Clark 1986). Some studies proposed that the desire to control obsidian sources and the distribution of their products led to colonization and the creation of empire (Michels 1979; Santley 1984). The importance of obsidian to economic systems was exaggerated to such an extent that elite control of craft production came to be viewed as a requisite source of wealth and power for archaic Mesoamerican states. From Centralized to Decentralized Production Models The rst two Maya Lithic Conferences, which focused on the large-scale production of chert tools in Belize, were organized in part to counterbalance obsidian studies and the models of craft production that they helped generate (Chapter 2). Harry J. Shafer, Thomas R. Hester, Daniel Potter, Elanor King, Patricia McAnany, and other archaeologists working in the eastern Maya lowlands wrote many reports, theses, dissertations, journal articles, and book chapters that shifted attention to the manufacture of chert artifacts. This move away from obsidian forced a rethinking of the role and denition of full-time craft specialization in the organization of complex society. Chert studies in Belize showed that full-time craft specialization was not necessarily directly controlled by the state, and that large-scale production of utilitarian goods did not necessarily provide avenues to elite wealth and power (King 2000; King and Potter 1995; McAnany 1993).
