Copyright by Micaela Nerio Obledo 2011 - The University of Texas ...

prestige technologies by the elite served as the ‘positive sanctions’ (Foladare 1969)
or methods for reification of their status and the maintenance thereof.
Cuello does not neatly or simply fall into any one category, for it was not a
site that was the locus of production for a specific commodity desired across the
region, as was Colha. Nor does the funerary assemblage of Cuello represent a
plethora of exotically sourced or even locally sourced materials, while K’axob
exhibits an overwhelming quantity of the latter. As shown above, the most prolific
items at the site that appear to differentiate between the social categories of the
decedents are worked bone, ceramics, jade, and shell. The latter of these four
appears to be a material marker for adult females in the Middle Preclassic while all
of the others are material indicators of an adult male identity throughout the
Preclassic. The shell accompanying females represents a prestige good in the sense
that marine resources would have been acquired from the coast approximately 50
KM to the east of the site. Although, freshwater sources of the New River and its
estuaries also provided inhabitants with a local source of shell.
Those material categories that served as markers of an adult male elite
identity also exhibit the combined quality of locally and exotically sourced materials.
Worked bone objects and ceramics would have been manufactured from locally
sourced faunal remains or the bones of recent ancestors and immediately available
clay sources. Conversely, the jade found with these elite males would have been
sourced from as far away as the Motagua Valley. Thus, it is debatable as to whether
the Cuello Preclassic elite were more focused on the definition and maintenance of
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