ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a comprehensive description of the specimen, assesses its antiquity, and comments on its probable function. The axe is a unique specimen of particular significance in the study of the stone tool technology of the Lowland Maya. In 1974 the late Dennis E. Puleston excavated a hafted stone artifact from the mucky fill of an ancient canal near San Antonio, Orange Walk District, in northern Belize. The biface from the Puleston axe is virtually identical in technology and form to the Late Preclassic large oval bifaces produced in the chert workshops at Colha. Several lines of evidence provide information on the age of the Puleston specimen: relative stratigraphic dating, radiocarbon assays, and cross-dating on the basis of form and technology of the chipped stone blade. The polish and striations observed on the Puleston axe are notably similar to use-wear patterns on exhausted oval biface celts from Colha and Kichpanha.
