It’s What’s on the Inside That Counts: New Approaches to Sourcing Mayan Chert Artifacts from Belize

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The distribution of prehistoric artifacts across spatial and temporal realms is frequently used to investigate trade, exchange, mobility, and socioeconomic relationships in the past. In the Maya region, chert was a key component in ancient toolkits due to its widespread availability and suitability for knapping into tools. Previous studies in the Maya region focused on the identification of particular chert types relying on visual properties alone. While a useful technique, the results are often too dependent on the identifier’s expertise rather than quantifiable and measurable attributes, thus driving new research for novel and innovative methods in chert source identification. We discuss preliminary results of a new methodology using a combination of microscopic and geochemical analyses on geological samples from northern Belize for sourcing chert. The ability to source chert artifacts provides insights for understanding how the ancient Maya interacted with and procured raw materials and the movement of chert artifacts through trade and exchange networks.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37227.0