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

number of different ways. According to CE:M ratios during the Chacalhaaz phase, more
obsidian may have been entering the site, population increased, the morphology of
imported cores shifted, and obsidian was used differently in royal caches. The economic
structure and the organization of production clearly shift during this phase. At the onset
of the Kumche phase, after the demise of the royal dynasty, blade production continues in
some areas of the site, including Operation 33, but with less intensity than the Chacalhaaz
phase.
The production of microcrystalline-quartz goods was never a highly restricted
activity during the Late Classic period (Figure 7.6), but may have been so during the
Early Classic and Early Late Classic. Again, the paucity of data for Naba and Balche
deposits may explain this lack of production evidence, or alternatively, the organization
of production in the city could have shifted greatly at the onset of the Yaxche phase
(Figure 7.5). It is clear, however, that different households used and produced different
kinds of microcrystalline-quartz goods, but that the production of small bifaces may have
been restricted.. In the end, the range of specificity sought for in differentiating different
kinds of production activities in microcrystalline quartzes yielded no secure results.
7.2.2: Hypothesis 2
This hypothesis states that the production of microcrystalline-quartz goods was
not connected to the production of obsidian goods. The distribution of producing
residential-groups shows that obsidian-blade production is often associated with the
production of microcrystalline-quartz goods. Hence, the null hypothesis was not rejected.
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