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Author: Suzanne M. Lewenstein Publisher: University of Texas Press ISBN: 0292741278 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 239
Book Description
For centuries scholars have pondered and speculated over the uses of the chipped stone implements uncovered at archaeological sites. Recently a number of researchers have attempted to determine prehistoric tool function through experimentation and through observation of the few remaining human groups who still retain this knowledge. Learning how stone tools were made and used in the past can tell us a great deal about ancient economic systems, exchange networks, and the social and political structure of prehistoric societies. Suzanne M. Lewenstein used the artifacts from Cerros, an important Late Preclassic (200 BC–AD 200) Mayan site in northern Belize, to study stone tool function. Through a comprehensive program of experimentation with stone tool replicas, she was able not only to infer the tasks performed by individual tool specimens but also to recognize a wide variety of past activities for which stone tools were used. Unlike previous works that focused on hunter-gatherer groups, Stone Tool Use at Cerros is the first comprehensive experimental study of tool use in an agricultural society. The lithic data are used in an economic interpretation of a lowland Mayan community within a hierarchically complex society. Apart from its significance to Mayan studies, this innovative work offers the beginnings of a reference collection of identifiable tool functions that may be documented for sedentary, complex society. It will be of major interest to all archaeologists and anthropologists, as well as those interested in economic specialization and artisanry in complex societies.
Author: Suzanne M. Lewenstein Publisher: University of Texas Press ISBN: 0292741278 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 239
Book Description
For centuries scholars have pondered and speculated over the uses of the chipped stone implements uncovered at archaeological sites. Recently a number of researchers have attempted to determine prehistoric tool function through experimentation and through observation of the few remaining human groups who still retain this knowledge. Learning how stone tools were made and used in the past can tell us a great deal about ancient economic systems, exchange networks, and the social and political structure of prehistoric societies. Suzanne M. Lewenstein used the artifacts from Cerros, an important Late Preclassic (200 BC–AD 200) Mayan site in northern Belize, to study stone tool function. Through a comprehensive program of experimentation with stone tool replicas, she was able not only to infer the tasks performed by individual tool specimens but also to recognize a wide variety of past activities for which stone tools were used. Unlike previous works that focused on hunter-gatherer groups, Stone Tool Use at Cerros is the first comprehensive experimental study of tool use in an agricultural society. The lithic data are used in an economic interpretation of a lowland Mayan community within a hierarchically complex society. Apart from its significance to Mayan studies, this innovative work offers the beginnings of a reference collection of identifiable tool functions that may be documented for sedentary, complex society. It will be of major interest to all archaeologists and anthropologists, as well as those interested in economic specialization and artisanry in complex societies.
Author: George H. Odell Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media ISBN: 1489901736 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 408
Book Description
Lithic analysts have been criticized for being atheoretical in their approach, or at least for not contributing to building archaeological theory. This volume redresses that balance. In Stone Tools, renowned lithic analysts employ explicitly theoretical constructs to explore the archaeological record and use the lithic database to establish its points. Chapters discuss curation, design theory, replacement of stone with metal, piece refitting, and projectile point style.
Author: Orville Winston Hampton Publisher: ISBN: Category : Ethnology Languages : en Pages : 936
Book Description
From both ethnoarchaeological and ethnogenesis perspectives, the complete cycle of quarrying, manufacture, trade, and uses of stone tools and symbolic stones, and the creation of other kinds of material goods and associated behavior within cultural systems of different language-speaking groups are documented and analyzed. Two adjacent stone tool use and trade regions are defined by the distribution and uses of mutually exclusive kinds and styles of profane ground stone tool blades. In the Grand Valley and West region, ground stone are and adze blades, knives, and chisels are manufactured and traded outward along complex trade linkages from two internal independently operated and geographically separated quarry and manufacturing centers, to the exclusion of adze blades and knives of distinctly different styles that are manufactured and traded within the adjoining Yali and East region. Tool blades trade freely across language boundaries within the two regions. Profane symbolic stones trade across the regional boundary from west to east. Slightly differing types of quarry ownership, operational technology (including uses of fire), and production techniques are discussed and shown at the different quarry-manufacturing centers. As much as 25-40 percent of axe, adze blades, and chisels were removed by users from secular use and converted to spiritually powerful sacred symbolic ancestor stones and to empowered sacred tools, all hierophanies of great cultural importance. Adze blades and chisels were of particular importance in their uses as power objects in shamans' religio-medical kits. Profane display-exchange stones and sacred ancestor stones were the cultural binders without which the cultures would have ceased to exist as they did. These symbolic stones were combined with perishable organic materials as decoration to visually transmit important cultural information. In addition, the uses of fiber string, stems of grass, a few leaves, and a certain root were essential to maintain the continuum of supernatural power from unknown places in the domain of the unseen into those durable stone objects that had been selected to be made sacred. The sociopolitical, and to a lesser extent the socioeconomic implications of the above factors for these inhabitants of Highlands Irian Jaya also are discussed and analyzed systemically.
Author: Payson D. Sheets Publisher: University of Texas Press ISBN: 0292749619 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 239
Book Description
On an August evening around AD 600, residents of the Cerén village in the Zapotitán Valley of what is now El Salvador were sitting down to their nightly meal when ground tremors and loud steam emissions warned of an impending volcanic eruption. The villagers fled, leaving their town to be buried under five meters of volcanic ash and forgotten until a bulldozer uncovered evidence of the extraordinarily preserved town in 1976. The most intact Precolumbian village in Latin America, Cerén has been called the "Pompeii of the New World." This book presents complete and detailed reports of the excavations carried out at Cerén since 1978 by a multidisciplinary team of archaeologists, ethnographers, volcanologists, geophysicists, botanists, conservators, and others. The book is divided into sections that discuss the physical environment and resources, household structures and economy, special buildings and their uses, artifact analysis, and topical and theoretical issues. As the authors present and analyze Cerén's houses and their goods, workshops, civic and religious buildings, kitchen gardens, planted fields, and garbage dumps, a new and much clearer picture of how commoners lived during the Maya Classic Period emerges. These findings constitute landmark contributions to the anthropology and archaeology of Central America.
Author: Debra S. Walker Publisher: University Press of Florida ISBN: 081305589X Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 380
Book Description
"Brings novel, synthetic insight to understanding a region that was a hub of waterborne trade and an important locus of production for some of the Maya’s most valued crops."--Cynthia Robin, author of Everyday Life Matters: Maya Farmers at Chan "This one of a kind volume shows us how important this region was to the ancient Maya with detailed and vivid descriptions of sociopolitical and economic organization and their relation to the unique landscape and geography of Chetumal Bay."--Laura J. Kosakowsky, author of Preclassic Maya Pottery at Cuello, Belize Chetumal Bay is central to discussions of ancient Maya politics, warfare, economy, exchange and communication because of its unique location. Although the ancient Maya invested prodigious amounts of labor in the construction of road systems called sacbeob for communication and trade, recent archaeological discoveries around Chetumal Bay in both Belize and Mexico reveal an economic alternative to these roads: an extensive network of riverine and maritime waterways. Focusing on sites ringing the bay such as Cerro Maya, Oxtankah, and Santa Rita Corozal, the contributors to this volume explore how the bay and its feeder rivers affected all aspects of Maya culture from settlement, food production, and the production and use of special goods to political relationships and social organization. Besides being a nexus for long distance exchange in valuable materials such as jade and obsidian, the region was recognized for its high quality agricultural produce, including cacao, achiote, vanilla, local fruits, honey, and salt, and for its rich marine environment. The Maya living on the fringes of the bay perceived the entire region as a single resource procurement zone. Waterborne trade brought the world to them, providing a wider horizon than would have been available to inland cities dependent only on Maya roads for news of the world. The research reveals that trade relations played a central role in the organization of human social life on Chetumal Bay. Contributors: James Aimers | Timothy Beach | Clifford Brown | Beverly A. Chiarulli | Lisa G. Duffy | Dori Farthing | David A. Freidel | Elizabeth Graham | Thomas Guderjan | Elizabeth Haussner | Linda Howie | Samantha Krause | Javier López Camacho | Sheryl Luzzadder-Beach | Marc D. Marino | Lucas R. Martindale Johnson | Heather McKillop | Nathan J. Meissner | Emiliano Ricardo Melgar Tísoc | Susan Milbrath | Satoru Murata | Maxine Oland | Terry Powis | Kathryn Reese-Taylor | Robin Robertson | Luis A. Torres Díaz | Araceli Vázquez Villegas | Debra S. Walker
Author: William James Stemp Publisher: BAR International Series ISBN: Category : History Languages : en Pages : 342
Book Description
A highly detailed analysis of stone tools recovered from excavations at two sites on the coral island of Ambergris Caye, off the coast of Belize, which revealed evidence of continued occupation on the island from c.100 BC until well into the Historic period. The study of the wear of tools provides a clear picture of the ways in which the Maya exploited the island's natural resources, notably fish, shell, coral and salt, while comparison of the sites shows the level of interaction between communities. Sections present a tool typology and discuss lithic technology, raw materials and the archaeological context and distribution of the assemblages.
Author: Robert S. Santley Publisher: UNM Press ISBN: 9780826340696 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 280
Book Description
This volume presents Santley's final synthesis of the evolution of Mesoamerican civilization in the Tuxtla Mountains of southern Veracruz, Mexico.
Author: Hattula Moholy-Nagy Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press ISBN: 1934536210 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 289
Book Description
Tikal Report 27 presents artifacts and associated unworked materials recovered by the University of Pennsylvania Museum's Tikal Project of 1956-1969.
Author: Zachary X. Hruby Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 131754417X Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 223
Book Description
The ancient Maya shaped their world with stone tools. Lithic artifacts helped create the cityscape and were central to warfare and hunting, craft activities, cooking, and ritual performance. 'The Technology of Maya Civilization' examines Maya lithic artefacts made of chert, obsidian, silicified limestone, and jade to explore the relationship between ancient civilizations and natural resources. The volume presents case studies of archaeological sites in Guatemala, Mexico, Belize, and Honduras. The analysis draws on innovative anthropological theory to argue that stone artefacts were not merely cultural products but tools that reproduced, modified, and created the fabric of society.
Author: Suzanne M. Lewenstein
Author: Suzanne M. Lewenstein
Author: George H. Odell
Author: Orville Winston Hampton
Author: Payson D. Sheets
Author: Debra S. Walker
Author: William James Stemp
Author: Robert S. Santley
Author: Hattula Moholy-Nagy
Author: Zachary X. Hruby
Author: Irwin Rovner