ABSTRACT
El Chayal is the name given to a series of related obsidian deposits distributed over an area of 300 square kilometers in the highlands of Guatemala (Figure 1.1). It is located in the municipios of Palencia, San José del Golfo (Department of Guatemala), and San Antonio La Paz (Department of El Progreso). Fifty-eight distinct outcrops of obsidian have been documented within this area (Figure 11.1). Moreover, the extraction of obsidian and manufacture of artifacts has left abundant evidence on the surface of quarrying and workshop activities. Visual inspection of obsidian from all these outcrops reveals that raw material from El Chayal appears in a wide variety of tones and hues including black, gray, reddish-brown, and several mixtures of these colors. The transparency or opacity of obsidian varies between and within each outcrop, which further complicates visual identication at the level of the individual outcrop. Nonetheless, not all the outcrops were intensively exploited by ancient peoples, which, to a certain degree, simplies the process of assigning artifacts to particular quarries. Archaeological Sites in the El Chayal Region
Our site typology for the El Chayal region is based on the types of artifacts and features we observed during survey. Site types include: (1) artifact scatters; (2) sites with structures; and (3) obsidian quarry-workshops.
