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

core such as is used in the Middle Usumacinta region (Lee and Hayden 1989). Similar
unifaces have been recorded for the northern Maya Lowlands (Rovner and Lewenstein
1997:34), but these may have been made from percussion flakes, and not blades. The few
Piedras Negras examples were made from blades, and were reduced by a pressure-flaking
technique that only moderately affected the original blade. Some examples from outside
the Piedras Negras area, which appear to be projectile points, may have also been used as
drills, but microscopic use-wear analyses are needed to confirm these two functions.
5.4.1.3.7: Small laurel leaf biface (see Figure 5.2 #28). This type was made from a small
nodule reduction flake or a large, biface-thinning flake. It was reduced by pressure, and
was finished with pressure. It was 8 cm or less in length. The distal and proximal ends are
pointed and roughly symmetrical. A thin, lenticular cross section was the desired result of
the reduction process.
This biface is the most common small biface at Piedras Negras and may have
been used as a small knife, spear point, or as an atlatl dart point, especially for smaller
versions. Some examples are small enough to be hafted as arrowheads, but none have
been found in Postclassic contexts where arrow technologies might have existed in the
Usumacinta region. Specimens from the Piedras Negras sample show use-wear evidence
of cutting, which suggests that even the smallest laurel-leaf bifaces also were used as
knives at one point in their use-life. They are finely pressure flaked and are made of fine
microcrystalline quartzes, including heat-treated local cherts and chalcedonies.
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