A Review of Indirect Percussion Techniques in the Americas and Their Possible Applications in the Manufacture of Ceremonial Bifaces and Mesoamerican Eccentrics

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Ceremonial Lithics of Mesoamerica: New Understandings of Technology, Distribution, and Symbolism of Eccentrics and Ritual Caches in the Maya World and Beyond" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Almost a century of bias in favor of direct percussion in the archaeological modeling of biface manufacture in the New World has obscured the central role of indirect percussion in this process. We examine ethnohistorical and archaeological evidence of indirect percussion in certain stages of biface manufacture, and posit their possible applications in the production of Mesoamerican ceremonial lithic items. A special focus is placed on replication experiments that utilize tools actually found in the ethnohistorical and archaeological record rather than those created by archaeologists and avocational knappers.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Ceremonial Lithics of Mesoamerica: New Understandings of Technology, Distribution, and Symbolism of Eccentrics and Ritual Caches in the Maya World and Beyond   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25032