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

mechanism for the uniform transmission of knowledge, restricted production pattern, and
also systematic debitage locations throughout the city. Similar to a European guild
system, the knapper oficio may have originally begun as an institution, constructed by
royalty to more easily monitor and control craft production within the city. A political
correlate for the Classic period may be the oficio of sajal 6 , which was not prominent in
the inscriptions of the Early Classic, but was created and used, ostensibly out of
necessity, in the western region of the Maya Lowlands, especially during the Terminal
Classic. During the Late Classic some oficios may have gained autonomy using their own
mythological charters as leverage when government became less centralized. The oficio
as a unit of analysis also may help explain how production patterns remained the same
before and after the removal of centralized governance (i.e., the collapse). On an
individual level, it may have been detrimental or advantageous to be associated with
more than one oficio, and membership may have varied through time depending on
political and economic circumstances.
Scant evidence of lithic production in palace contexts throughout the lowlands,
suggests that the role of the knapper was disconnected from much of palace life and the
high culture maintained there (Houston and Inomata 2001; Inomata 2001). However, the
existence of eccentrics and other lithic goods in royal-ritual contexts reveals a
dependence on knapping skill and products for high-profile ritual activities. Attached
specialization may have occurred intermittently depending on the particular ritual needs
of royal groups, similar to that described by Landa for “idol” production in the Yucatan
(see Tozzer 1941:159). The oficio, then, can be viewed as a nexus of world views,
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