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

made from microcrystalline quartz, and also in the production of obsidian bifaces for
royal cache deposits.
Although there is a high probability of different procurement strategies for locally
or regionally available materials versus purely imported ones, they were used in some
similar ways. Obsidian and microcrystalline quartz crosscut elite and nonelite contexts in
use, as cutting and scraping tools and as ceremonial goods. Both also were reduced using
a combination of percussion and pressure techniques, which may have placed them in
similar emic categories for the knappers and the consumers of the finished products. It
should also be noted, however, that obsidian and microcrystalline quartzes were
symbolically distinct throughout the history of the Maya world and, as previously
mentioned, they were reduced in different ways. This idea is supported by the use of
obsidian and flint oppositions in the caches at Piedras Negras and elsewhere in the Maya
area. Thus, part of this research can address the problem of the division of labor based on
material, technology, and location by isolating the degree to which different materials
were reduced independently of one another by one or more groups of stone workers (see
Hypothesis 2 below).
I make distinctions between all technologies and forms (both “utilitarian” and
“ceremonial”), because it is precisely the broad archaeological category of “chipped-
stone producer” that is one of the main foci of this study. If relatively large amounts of
microcrystalline quartz and obsidian debitage come from one particular household group,
it is impossible to determine if that household group housed a “jack-of-all-trades” stone
worker, or a number of culturally distinct kinds of craft specialists. On the other hand, if
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