ABSTRACT
Beginning around A.D. 650, Cotzumalhuapa grew to become one of the great cities of southern Mesoamerica. Settlements covering an estimated 10 square kilometers clustered around the architectural compounds known as El Baúl, El Castillo, and Bilbao (Figures 1.1 and 9.1). These were the major ceremonial and administrative precincts of the city, and probable royal residences. A system of stone-paved causeways and bridges integrated the city, linking the major compounds with each other and with surrounding settlements (Chinchilla Mazariegos 1998, n.d.). The city developed a celebrated sculptural style that abounds in dignied portraits with individualized physical features, suggestive of centralized rulership (cf. Hatch 1987). Notations on many monuments probably convey the calendrical names of individuals, although these inscriptions still remain to be translated. Importantly, there are indications that the rulers may have played a role in craft production, specically of obsidian tools and weapons. This observation derives from the presence of a very large deposit of obsidian debitage within a short distance of the El Baúl acropolis. Discovered and test excavated by Sonia Medrano in 1996, this deposit was investigated by the author in 2002. Further excavations in adjacent architectural compounds continued in 2006 and 2007. This paper describes the debitage deposit and its associated archaeological features, concentrating on the description of archaeological contexts and their implications for the interpretation of this probable workshop. Edgar Carpio (in Chinchilla Mazariegos 2004) and Rafael Castillo (2006) report the results of their analysis of obsidian debris recovered from some of the excavated contexts. A large portion of the recovered lithic materials still remains unanalyzed.
