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

moon crescent. While the blanks used to make Column 7 eccentrics were percussion
flakes that ended in hinge terminations, Column 8 eccentrics are generally round in
shape, but there is no technological correlation between them. The R-5-4 eccentric from
Column 8 is a distal rejuvenation flake and the other from Cache R-5-6 is a proximal
fragment of a percussion blade or flake. This technological incongruence may be due to a
lack of the desired flake at the time the cache was deposited, but it also may represent an
unrecognized pattern. It is important to note, however, that the rounded forms were
derived from flakes removed from either the proximal or distal end of the core. Medial
fragments of flakes and blades were not chosen for disc-shaped eccentrics.
Column 5 eccentrics were made from step- or hinge-removal percussion flakes
and represent a common trefoil form at Piedras Negras that has no known symbolic
meaning. Similarly, meanings are not known for Columns 6 and 9, but they may correlate
with some of the other deities on incised Tikal obsidian eccentrics (Figure 7.9) because
they also are common in Piedras Negras caches. The double-notch forms from Column 6
are made from first-series pressure blades, and Column 9 eccentrics are made from
exhausted cores. Ultimately, the flake and blade appears to be an integral aspect of the
finished eccentric, even when it represents the correction of an error in the normal blade-
making process. These forms are repeated in other caches, but not in the same groupings
of nine found in these two caches. Nevertheless, close to 150 years later, similar forms
continued to be used at Piedras Negras in the temple Cache O-13-7 (Figure 7.16), but the
technology had shifted primarily to the bifacial reduction of exhausted pressure-blade
cores. Nevertheless, the same flake/blade correlation to symbolic type continued,
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