Preliminary Obsidian Analysis for the Site of Holtun, Petén, Guatemala 2011-2015

Summary

Holtun is a medium-sized civic-ceremonial center located in the Maya lowlands in the central lakes region of Petén, Guatemala that was occupied from the Preclassic (~600BC) through the beginning of the Postclassic (AD1000). During the 2011, 2014, and 2015 field seasons of the Holtun Archaeological Project approximately 147 pieces of obsidian were recovered from a mixture of contexts including fill, plaza, ceremonial, and household. Analyses of obsidian artifacts included typological analysis, weight and measurement, preliminary visual sourcing, and indices of invasiveness, followed by chemical characterization using portable X-Ray Fluorescence (pXRF). This poster presents the preliminary results of data collected for the obsidian from Holtun between 2011 and 2015 with the goal of further understanding access and distribution through time and across various contexts of the site. Preliminary analysis suggests San Martín Jilotepeque as the dominant obsidian source in the Preclassic period at Holtun, followed by a replacement by El Chayal as the dominant source during the Classic period.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

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

Keywords

Spatial Coverage