Craft Specialization in the Hinterland: Lithic Tool Production within Dispersed Urban Landscapes at El Palmar (Campeche, Mexico) and across the Maya Lowlands

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Dispersed urban landscapes are mosaics of individual interactions generated through a range of social and economic processes. Large-scale lithic production provides a lens for understanding the interconnected nature of economies between hinterland communities and central polities, yet it remains relatively underexplored in Classic period Maya society (AD 250-850). Growing evidence, however, suggests that patterns exist in the ancient Maya lithic production. Understanding these patterns sheds light on the economic implications of craft productions in urbanization processes.

This paper explores a hinterland community, Took’ Witz, located in the hinterland of El Palmar, a large Classic Maya polity in southeastern Campeche, Mexico. The site has evidence of several large-scale chert biface production areas, in the form of numerous debitage deposits. We will discuss the results of recent excavations of a lithic deposit at the site and the subsequent debitage analysis, as well as the relationship between independent producers and polity-wide economic systems. These data will be juxtaposed to other known lithic production communities in the Maya lowlands, with a particular focus on central Belize, to advance the understanding of ancient Maya urbanism and economy.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• SAA 2021: General Sessions

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32975