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

The research presented here submits a mechanism whereby the royal family at
times strove for control over craft production, craft products, and esoteric production
knowledge. Drawing from the idea that craft specialization in the Maya area played an
important role in social organization and the formation of individual identity (see Clark
and Houston 1998), the relevance of this thesis moves beyond economic issues, to
religious and political aspects of social organization. This perspective has implications
for understanding how the ruling family attempted to exploit the “commoners,” but also
how people negotiated and manipulated local ideologies for their own benefit and the
longevity of their own lineage or craft group. The proposed model attempts to avoid the
use of hierarchical and heterarchical templates of social organization and instead posits
more specific relationships between the ruling elite and the rest of the population by
focusing on specific social practices.
1.1: THE SAMPLE AND THE ANALYSIS
Despite the large numbers of sites investigated in the western portion Maya
Lowlands (e.g., El Cayo [Lee and Hayden 1989], Palenque [Johnson 1976], Altar de
Sacrificios [Willey 1972]) very little is known about the production, distribution, and
consumption of chipped-stone goods in this region. A combined ten years of excavations
at the site of Piedras Negras, Guatemala provides an excellent lithic sample from royal
and nonroyal contexts to expand our knowledge of this area. The chipped-stone artifacts
of Piedras Negras represent a wide range of technologies, industries, and material types
from throughout the Classic period (A.D. 250-900). Acknowledging the diversity in these
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