Greenstone from Where? Petrographic and Microprobe Analyses of Greenstone Triangulates from Middle Preclassic Pacbitun, Belize

Summary

Artifacts made from green-colored rocks, including but not limited to jadeites, circulated widely in Mesoamerica during the Middle Preclassic (c. 900 – 350) and were imbued with cosmological significance and social value from early times. "Greenstone triangulates" form a distinct subset of these artifacts that have only been recovered from Middle Preclassic settlements in the Belize Valley. These roughly triangular objects are typically made from green-colored rocks that are visibly differentiable from jadeites and are thought to originate outside the Belize Valley. Jadeite sourcing studies have identified geologic deposits of green-colored stones in the Motagua Valley of Guatemala, and non-jadeite green-stone artifacts from the Maya Lowlands are often presumed to derive from this area, although few studies have focused on accurately characterizing these materials through microscopic and/or geochemical analysis. This poster presents preliminary results from a study of eight greenstone triangulates from Pacbitun, Belize, which combined petrographic and electron microprobe analyses to characterize the rocks they were made from. Accurate identification of rock types was used to investigate potential sources for the triangulate materials through comparison with published geological studies. The results of this study suggest that green-colored stones circulated widely across Mesoamerica through complex networks of interaction and exchange.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)

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