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

These basic stylistic categories are once again discussed in Chapter 7 with supporting
technological data.
Epigraphic evidence from Yaxchilan suggests that Piedras Negras suffered a
defeat from that polity in A.D. 808, and that Ruler 7 may have been vanquished at that
time (Stuart 1998:389-392). Although the production of carved stone monuments did not
continue after this defeat, the city did not cease to function entirely (Muñoz 2003). In
fact, the acropolis continued to be occupied after A.D. 808, and other major residential
groups in the site core and in the near periphery continued to be occupied through late
Chacalhaaz times. The end of the Terminal Classic, or the Kumche ceramic phase,
signaled further decrease in population, but it is important to note that the final stucco
work on the back of O-13 contained Kumche phase ceramics (Muñoz personal
communication 2001). These patterns indicate that the Maya of Piedras Negras continued
to maintain some of the major ritual centers of the city, and that in O-13 at least, some
caching activity may have continued up through part of the 10 th century. A ceramic cache
found in the collapse of the P-7 sweatbath marks, perhaps, an even later ritual treatment
of the buildings at Piedras Negras.
This review of the archaeology and history of Piedras Negras certainly is not all-
inclusive, but rather focuses on the discoveries made during earlier excavations and
studies that have an effect on our understanding of the lithic traditions of Piedras Negras.
The sample collected during much more expansive and systematic excavations carried
out by the Piedras Negras project (1997-2000) provides evidence of much larger systems
of production and consumption by the royal family and other residential groups within
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