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

continued, although in a minor way after the introduction of bifacially-reduced obsidian
eccentrics (Figure 7.22), suggests that this tradition did survive, but was not the most
valued product.
The final stages of collapse at Piedras Negras reveal an increase in caching ritual,
especially in the O-13 pyramid. The inclusion of many notched-flake obsidian eccentrics,
probably associated with auto-sacrifice (Joyce 1992), may mark a return to earlier
obsidian practices, ideologies, and traditions. Regardless of changes in technology,
symbolism, and ultimately, obsidian craft specialists through time, obsidian eccentrics
continued as an important element of caching ritual up until the political demise of the
center.
7.3.2.3: Other examples of the ritual use of debitage. No hieroglyphic texts
were found in caches, but royal and elite burials often were interred with highly polished
goods that featured hieroglyphic writing. The illustrious stone carvers and scribes of
Piedras Negras incised jades and shells with images of Classic Maya deities, without any
reference to the logosyllabic writing for which they were famous. These basic site-wide
patterns suggest that burials at Piedras Negras were places of lived and recorded history,
scribes, and the consumption of well-finished high-quality goods, while caches reflect
concepts of primordial world creation through craft production; they reflect the early
stages of certain kinds of craft production. Given the high quality and value of these
goods in royal burials at Piedras Negras, the deposition of production debitage in these
same deposits seems to be out of place. Two royal burials in particular, and Early Classic
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