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

5.6.5: Blades, Core Reduction Debitage, and Cores
There is sparse evidence that microcrystalline-quartz polyhedral cores were
reduced at Piedras Negras. A small sample of possible exhausted-cores (N=3) appears to
have been polished and transformed into awls or chisels. Figure 5.13 depicts one of these
possible cores, which is marked as such by the multifaceted platform and remnant blade
scars on the face of the piece. Rejuvenation flakes and percussion blades also are found at
Piedras Negras (Figure 5.14). It is unclear by what means the blades were produced
because the sample is too small. Microcrystalline-quartz blades, however, do appear in
burial contexts indicating that they were of some value to the local population. Percussion
blades and polyhedral cores from a cave site near El Cayo (Lee and Hayden 1989)
indicate that microcrystalline-quartz blade technology was a regional phenomenon.
5.6.6: Ad Hoc Cores and Flakes
The most common ad hoc flake-core technology at Piedras Negras was the
multidirectional flake-core, but there also is evidence of unidirectional flake-core
reduction. Multidirectional flake-cores usually were made from nodule fragments, and
thick, short nodule-reduction flakes that were unusable for the production of bifaces. The
cores are often spherical or discoid in shape, and often are made from rough-texture
microcrystalline quartzes. The flakes are short and thick. The dorsal scarring pattern can
resemble those of biface-reduction flakes, but the platform is larger, poorly prepared, and
often angular. Based on hammerstone morphology at the site, multidirectional flake-cores
were a common “blank” for hammerstones, which were further rounded through use.
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