Household Crafting in the Maya City of Palenque, Chiapas, Mexico

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Classic period (250–900 CE) Maya economic systems were diverse with most lowland cities revealing a combination of intensive surplus crafting workshops and more domestic household crafting. Some craft production may have been centralized and occurring under the supervision of the state and others appear to be operating independently at the household level yet still within city settlement. At Palenque, this appears to be the case with some crafting occurring in the central palace district and other crafting occurring in private homes within a neighborhood context. We are still learning the extent of diversity in the types of activities that occurred in Palenque’s residential groups, however as compared to other residential groups that have been excavated in the same neighborhood, one group stands apart as a multi-crafting household. The data includes many obsidian drills and nearly 100 chert drills recovered from discrete locations. This presentation will discuss recent excavations in a Palenque neighborhood and the broader implications following a preliminary analysis of chert and obsidian flaked stone.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38596.0