The Organization of Chipped-Stone Economies at Piedras Negras ...

3.3.1: Hypothesis Set 1: The Organization of Production
The first hypothesis is that the production of obsidian and microcrystalline-quartz
goods was limited to a few residential groups during any single time period. Evidence for
the production of chipped-stone goods should be restricted to a relatively small number
of residential groups over time. I use the production value number (discussed above)
from operations with significant numbers of artifacts to reject the null hypothesis. The
null hypothesis is that the majority of excavated residential groups have significant
amounts of production evidence. Each household group is designated as a likely chipped-
stone production area if it had a significant ratio of production debitage to nonproduction-
related debitage, as reflected in the total production value number. The implication of this
test is that the production of chipped-stone goods was restricted, either by the royal
family, or by the craft specialists who made those goods.
The second hypothesis is that production of microcrystalline-quartz goods was not
connected to the production of obsidian goods. The null hypothesis is that residential
groups with significant production values for microcrystalline-quartz materials will co-
occur with significant production evidence for obsidian. The implication is that knappers
who worked in obsidian were a distinct group of craft specialists from those who worked
in microcrystalline-quartz materials. If the null hypothesis is not rejected, then hypothesis
2 may still be true, but it is impossible to define statistically.
It is important to note that I am not testing the idea that the royal family controlled
lithic production and distribution outright. The interest here is simply to determine the
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