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

the Chacalhaaz phase represent heterodoxy in opposition to the orthodoxic practices of
the dominant group. The actual membership in these groups may actually have been quite
small, better conceptualized has having competing ideologies held by a few individuals,
but the doxa/heterodoxy/orthodoxy distinction accurately describes the role of ideas in
the rise of competition evident in the Chacalhaaz phase.
The organizational structure of the oficio system is evident in the large caches of
the Chacalhaaz phase wherein deposited eccentrics were made by many different hands.
Those in the knapping oficio were brought together, possible as a group, to create the
goods necessary to bring off these semi-public ceremonies. At the same time, there was
tension between those in the same oficio. As population increased at Piedras Negras and
other regions of the Maya Lowlands, membership in other oficios also increased. Sajal
and carver titles grow more common in Terminal Classic inscriptions, which suggests
that certain oficios were becoming overcrowded. High-status occupations such as these
were previously reserved for only a few individuals, and the data presented here suggest
that lower-status occupations also were becoming more populated. More individuals
competing over diminishing resources likely created social instability. This competition
involved material and symbolic aspects, which were bound up in horizontal and vertical
social relations. Ultimately, a combination of raw material redistribution by the ruling
elite through the importation and gifting of polyhedral blade-cores, and the use and
expression of esoteric production knowledge by blade producers, led to the patterns we
find in the archaeological record at Piedras Negras.
329