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

properly (see Meadows 2001). Gann and Gann (1939:157) had a more conservative view
of eccentrics, specifically that all attempts to assign a function to them, aside from a
broader “ceremonial” one, are useless because of their apparent lack of use-wear.
Archaeologists from this early period of investigation (1850-1947) were largely
disinterested in artifacts thought to be utilitarian in nature; this trend continued into the
early 1970s. In one of the most influential descriptions of Maya chipped-stone artifacts,
Coe (1965:594) stated “it is the fact that certain objects do not conform to opulent
standards that classifies them as utilitarian . . .” Regardless of their disdain for the so-
called mundane tools, early Mayanists enjoyed speculating about the importance of tools
and materials in trade; for example: “obsidian must have been one of the commonest, and
at the same time most useful materials employed by the Maya in the manufacture of their
tools and weapons” (Gann 1929:174). That obsidian projectile points or lance heads (i.e.,
weapons) are far from common in household contexts in Belize, and the Maya Lowlands
in general, shows interpretation without analysis can be far from accurate.
A special place was also given to the interpretation of stone tools as carving
implements for architectural features and sculpture (Joyce 1914:305). In the early 1920s
Gann (1929:56) was one of the first to use ethnohistoric information (i.e., Landa) in
interpreting a large chipped-stone artifact deposit from Xunantunich. Gann (ibid.)
asserted:
Now here we have what can be nothing else than the stock-in-trade of an ancient
jeweler, and I think the inference is fairly obvious that the individual buried
beneath, whether on the summit, or . . . in a chamber at the base, was a jeweler
and worker in flints, ivory and precious stones.
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