A Reexamination of the Distribution of Jade Artifacts at the Maya Site of Blue Creek in Northwestern Belize

Summary

This is an abstract from the "An Exchange of Ideas: Recent Research on Maya Commodities" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Excavations at Blue Creek from 1992 to 2000 yielded a large collection of jade artifacts with approximately 900 artifacts being found in a single cache in Structure 4 and a total of nearly 1,500 artifacts recovered from throughout the site. In this paper, we revisit our interpretation of the social context of the Structure 4 cache. In addition, we review the spatial and temporal distribution of jade artifacts throughout the site. Finally, we compare these data to competing models of social control of jade in the Maya world. Was jade a fungible item of commerce or a royally controlled material that was used for rewarding service?

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• An Exchange of Ideas: Recent Research on Maya Commodities   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 35790.0