Lapidary Crafting in the Tlajinga Barrio at Sites 17:S3E1 and 18:S3E1, Teotihuacan

Summary

Fine screened (1 mm mesh) samples obtained from the heavy fractions of flotation samples at the recent excavations in the Tlajinga barrio of Teotihuacan have revealed evidence of extensive lapidary crafting of slate and greenstone. Sorting of the sediments from these samples results in the recovery of minute fragments of lapidary debitage as well as more typical domestic refuse. Evidence will be presented on the types of artifacts being produced, the materials being crafted, and the intensity of production at these two sites. Also these data will be compared with the lapidary craft production at nearby 33:S3W1 that also has evidence of craft production and has already been published.In this presentation I will outline the methodology utilized in this analysis, the reduction sequence of lapidary production of specific artifacts, the raw materials being worked, and the procedure for measuring the intensity of production of lapidary production. What we are discovering is that the Tlajinga district of Teotihuacan has quite intense and diverse lapidary craft production. However, this activity is typically not visible at the macro scale and so requires the use of microartifact recovery and analysis to reveal the nature and intensity of this production.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• The Rise and Decline of Teotihuacan: Urbanism, Daily Life, and Regional Relations through Time

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Spatial Coverage