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

from the seat of power by many different hands lithic production was not of interest to
the royal family and had no relation to the political economy (see McAnany 1989).
Chipped-stone production likely did not “make” or “break” the political economy of the
ancient Maya, but it was part of the political economy as defined broadly in Chapter 2.
Lithic distribution also may reflect larger systems of exchange, such as the organization
of agricultural production and tribute. Furthermore, on the smaller scale of intra-site
politics, lithic production, distribution, and consumption could have played a large role in
social organization (see Chapter 2 and 3). In this regard, Aoyama and Potter and King,
for example, may be “speaking past one another,” because lithic exchange probably did
not have a direct effect on the sustainability of the political economy (e.g., agricultural
surplus), but the ruling elites may have had interest in controlling some aspects of the
chipped-stone economy for reasons of increasing their prestige within the city.
Potter and King (1995) suggested that it is not worthwhile to discuss the
systematic production of chipped-stone goods without massive primary and secondary
production debris deposits. Large deposits of production debitage demonstrate that
massive production occurred at secondary sites. However, this observation offers no
suitable range of interpretations that account for the production debris that occurs in large
city centers, or an explanation of how and why production activities took place there (cf.
Moholy-Nagy 1997). The truth is that all major Lowland Maya cities featured lithic
production of some kind, and this production has implications for understanding the
organization of production and the local economy of political centers. Chipped-stone
goods were imported to Piedras Negras, but this does not mean that regionally imported
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