The Stones of Calakmul: Lithics and Other Technologies Among the Maya at Calakmul, Campeche, During the Late and Terminal Classic and Their Cultural Implications

UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
Joel D. Gunn, Lecturer (Creator)
Institution
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/

Abstract: This chapter discusses the stone artifact assemblage excavated from Calakmul, Campeche, Mexico between 1984 and 1994 under the direction of William J. Folan, Centro de Investigaciones Históricas y Sociales of the Universidad Autonoma de Campeche. After setting the analysis of stone tools in the context of the Central Maya lowlands, methods of studying stone implements are related from various sources including previous Maya lithic studies, the French Upper Paleolithic, and Southeastern United States. Then we explore the assemblage in a three-step investigation: 1. We characterized the assemblage in very general terms to bracket the weight-sizes and shapes of what was found. 2. We break the assemblage down into types and subtypes. Types are usually standard stone tool technology forms whose function is understood through direct observation in ethnographic societies, or forms on which only limited understanding is available from historical and ethnographic records and so has to be inferred. The approach taken herein is to analyze the size modes of the forms to insure each represents a homogenous population. If it is not, it is divided into subtypes based on the modes, usually of weights or occasionally other aspects of sizes. 3. We cluster the types/subtypes based on their associations in “rooms”. Most rooms are literal rooms with walls and some doors, but rooms may also be some other confined spaces such as porticos, zones, and segments of staircases. The room clusters are then assigned inferred functions based on the members of these tool kit clusters with the best understood functions. For example, if barkbeaters used in making bark cloth are found with obsidian prismatic blades, it is assumed that those blades were also used in the bark cloth making process, perhaps for trimming edges, and that rooms containing these combinations of tools included those functions. Some rooms appear to be single use, especially small rooms, other larger rooms appear to be multiuse.

Additional Information

Publication
Informacion 17
Language: English
Date: 2020
Keywords
Central Maya lowlands, lithic studies, Calakmul, stone artifacts

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