Hidden Gems: New Research on Lapidary, Lapidarists, and Polished Stone and Shell in the Americas

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Hidden Gems: New Research on Lapidary, Lapidarists, and Polished Stone and Shell in the Americas" at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Lapidary -- the art of cutting, machining, grinding, and polishing hard materials such as stone and shell -- is an artform widely practiced throughout the ancient Americas. Lapidarists from the Eastern Woodlands, the American Southwest, Mesoamerica, the Isthmo-Colombian area, the Antilles, Amazonia, and the Andes all made and exchanged a variety of objects of hard stone and shell, including beadwork, mosaics, small sculptures, and carved adornments. While considerable study has been conducted on specific types of lapidary objects and on important materials including jadeite, magnetite, ilmenite, hematite, and Spondylus shell, many other lapidary objects and materials exist and merit consideration. This session explores new research on lapidary, lapidarists, and the purposes and meanings of lapidary objects produced by precolonial artisans. Examinations of new archaeological finds and explorations of little-studied materials, artifacts, and techniques are welcome, as are new hypotheses, re-examinations, and reinterpretations of well-known objects, significant materials, and previous research.