Combined Geochemical and Contextual Analysis of Ancient Maya Obsidian Blades in Western Belize

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Long-distance trade was a key factor in the development of complex Maya sociopolitical systems. Exotic goods were used for quotidian and ceremonial purposes, and controlling trade has been hypothesized as one way that elites gained and maintained their influence. While geochemical analysis of obsidian is a key method for examining its exchange, prior research demonstrates the necessity of incorporating contextual data to elucidate how obsidian was consumed, and to accurately track temporal trends in supply and demand from distant sources. Here we present combined portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) and contextual data from over 4,000 obsidian artifacts from Preclassic to Terminal Classic (ca. 900 BC - AD 900/1000) contexts from three sites in the upper Belize River Valley region of the Maya lowlands (Baking Pot, Cahal Pech, and Lower Dover). Contextual data, including hierarchical (e.g. elite, intermediate elite, and commoner), architectural-locational (e.g. monumental vs. residential) and behavioral-locational (e.g. workshops, caches, discard) data are employed to explore how different types of obsidian were used by different actors within the upper Belize Valley communities. This analysis has broad implications for understanding how exotic goods were consumed at different levels of the social hierarchy and how consumption and assignment of value shifted over time.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 51502