Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T15:55:35.008Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

FIFTY SHADES OF GREEN: INTERPRETING MAYA JADE PRODUCTION, CIRCULATION, CONSUMPTION, AND VALUE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2018

Brigitte Kovacevich  and
Michael G. Callaghan
Brigitte Kovacevich*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Central Florida, 4000 Central Florida Boulevard, Howard Phillips Hall Room 309, Orlando, Florida 32816
Michael G. Callaghan*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Central Florida, 4000 Central Florida Boulevard, Howard Phillips Hall Room 309, Orlando, Florida 32816
*
E-mail correspondence to: [email protected], [email protected]
E-mail correspondence to: [email protected], [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This work addresses varying interpretations of the production, circulation, and consumption of jades in the Maya area from the Preclassic through the Postclassic periods (600 b.c.–a.d. 1697). Traditionally, exchange of jades has been seen as a dyadic relationship between elites (gifting and tribute). Some have argued for gradations of value in the circulation of jades, which probably circulated in both elite and commoner spheres. More recent research argues that jade blanks were commoditized because they could be standardized. In this article, we evaluate this last claim, concluding there is no evidence for standardization and commodification of jade blanks, and a dearth of jade blanks in archaeological deposits. We critique the expectation that commodities in some nonindustrial economies should be standardized, and make suggestions about what kinds of jade objects, if any, have greatest potential to become commodities in the Maya area.

Type
Research Article
Information
Ancient Mesoamerica , Volume 30 , Issue 3 , Fall 2019 , pp. 457 - 472
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Andrieu, Chloé, Rodas, Edna, and Luin, Luis 2014 The Values of Classic Maya Jade: A Reanalysis of Cancuen's Jade Workshop. Ancient Mesoamerica 25:141–164.Google Scholar
Appadurai, Arjun 1986 Introduction: Commodities and the Politics of Value. In The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, edited by Appadurai, Arjun, pp. 3–63. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Appadurai, Arjun 1994 Commodities and the Politics of Value. In Interpreting Objects and Collections, edited by Pearce, Susan M., pp. 76–91. Routledge, London.Google Scholar
Blackman, M. James, Stein, Gil J., and Vandiver, Pamela B. 1993 The Standardization Hypothesis and Ceramic Mass Production: Technological, Compositional, and Metric Indexes of Craft Specialization at Tell Leilan, Syria. American Antiquity 58:60–80.Google Scholar
Bradley, Bruce 1975 Lithic Reduction Sequences: A Glossary and Definitions. In Lithic Technology: Making and Using Stone Tools, edited by Swanson, Earl Herbert, pp. 5–15. Mouton and Company, Paris.Google Scholar
Braswell, Geoffrey E., and Glascock, Michael D. 2002 The Emergence of Market Economies in the Ancient Maya World: Obsidian Exchange in Terminal Classic Yucatan, Mexico. In Geochemical Evidence for Long-Distance Exchange, edited by Glascock, Michael D., pp. 33–52. Bergin and Garvey, Westport.Google Scholar
Comaroff, Jean, and Comaroff, John L. 2005 Beasts, Banknotes and the Colour of Money in Colonial South Africa. Archaeological Dialogues 12:107–132.Google Scholar
Costin, Cathy, and Hagstrum, Melissa 1995 Standardization, Labor Investment, Skill and the Organization of Ceramic Production in Late Prehispanic Highland Peru. American Antiquity 60:619–639.Google Scholar
Dalton, George 1965 Primitive Money. American Anthropologist 67:44–65.Google Scholar
Demarest, Arthur A. 2013 Ideological Pathways to Economic Exchange: Religion, Economy, and Legitimation at the Classic Maya Royal Capital of Cancuén. Latin American Antiquity 24:371–402.Google Scholar
Digby, Adrian 1964 Maya Jades. Trustees of the British Museum, London.Google Scholar
Easby, Elizabeth K. 1964 The Squier Jades from Toniná, Chiapas. In Essays in Pre-Columbian Art and Archaeology, edited by Lothrop, Samuel K., pp. 60–80. Harvard University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Fash, William 1988 A New Look at Maya Statecraft from Copán, Honduras. Antiquity 62:157–169.Google Scholar
Freidel, David A. 1993 The Jade Ahau: Toward a Theory of Commodity Value in Maya Civilization. In Precolumbian Jade: New Geological and Cultural Interpretations, edited by Lange, Frederick W., pp. 149–165. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Freidel, David A., Reese-Taylor, Kathryn, and Mora-Marín, David 2002 The Origins of Maya Civilization: The Old Shell Game, Commodity, Treasure, and Kingship. In Ancient Maya Political Economies, edited by Masson, Marilyn A. and Freidel, David A., pp. 41–86. Altamira Press, Walnut Creek.Google Scholar
Freidel, David A., and Reilly, Kent 2010 The Flesh of the God: Cosmology, Food, and the Origins of Political Power in Ancient Southeastern Mesoamerica. In Pre-Columbian Foodways: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Food, Culture, and Markets in Mesoamerica, edited by Staller, John E. and Carrasco, Miguel, pp. 635–680. Springer-Verlag, New York.Google Scholar
Freidel, David A., Masson, Marilyn A., and Rich, Michelle 2017 Imagining a Complex Maya Political Economy: Counting Tokens and Currencies in Image, Text and the Archaeological Record. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 27:29–54.Google Scholar
Garber, James 1993 The Cultural Context of Jade Artifacts from the Maya Site of Cerros, Belize. In Precolumbian Jade: New Geological and Cultural Interpretations, edited by Lange, Frederick, pp. 166–172. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Godelier, Maurice 1996 L'énigme du don. Fayard, Paris.Google Scholar
Graeber, David 1996 Beads and Money: Notes Toward a Theory of Wealth and Power. American Ethnologist 23:4–24.Google Scholar
Graeber, David 2001 Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value: The False Coin of Our Own Dreams. Springer, New York.Google Scholar
Graeber, David 2012 Debt: The First 5000 Years. First Melville House Printing, New York.Google Scholar
Graeber, David 2014 Debt-Updated and Expanded: The First 5,000 Years. Melville House, London.Google Scholar
Gregory, Chris A. 1982 Commodities and Gifts. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Guderjan, Thomas 2007 The Nature of an Ancient Maya City: Resources, Interaction and Power at Blue Creek, Belize. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.Google Scholar
Hammond, Norman 1999 The Genesis of Hierarchy: Mortuary and Offertory Ritual in the Pre-Classic at Cuello, Belize. In Social Patterns in Pre-Classic Mesoamerica, edited by Grove, David C. and Joyce, Rosemary A., pp. 49–56. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Hendon, Julia A 2000 Having and Holding: Storage, Memory, Knowledge, and Social Relations. American Anthropologist 102:42–53.Google Scholar
Hirth, Kenneth 1998 The Distributional Approach: A New Way to Identify Marketplace Exchange in the Archaeological Record. Current Anthropology 39:451–476.Google Scholar
Hodder, Ian 1982 Toward a Contextual Approach to Prehistoric Exchange. In Contexts for Prehistoric Exchange, edited by Ericson, Jonathan E. and Earle, Timothy K., pp. 199–211. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Houston, Stephen, Stuart, David, and Taube, Karl 2006 The Memory of Bones: Body, Being, and Experience among the Classic Maya. University of Texas Press, Austin.Google Scholar
Joyce, Rosemary 2000 Heirlooms and Houses: Materiality and Social Memory. In Beyond Kinship: Social and Material Reproduction in House Societies, edited by Joyce, Rosemary and Gillespie, Susan, pp. 189–212. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Joyce, Thomas A. 1938 The Gann Jades. British Museum Quarterly 12:145.Google Scholar
Knappett, Carl, and Malafouris, Lambros (editors) 2008 Material Agency: Towards a Non-Anthropocentric Approach. Springer, New York.Google Scholar
Kopytoff, Igor 1986 The Cultural Biography of Things. In The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, edited by Appadurai, Arjun, pp. 64–94. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Kovacevich, Brigitte 2006 Reconstructing Classic Maya Economic Systems: Production and Exchange at Cancuen. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville.Google Scholar
Kovacevich, Brigitte 2007 Ritual, Crafting, and Agency at the Classic Maya Kingdom of Cancuen. In Mesoamerican Ritual Economy: Archaeological and Ethnological Perspectives, edited by Wells, E. Christian and Davis-Salazar, Karla, pp. 67–114. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.Google Scholar
Kovacevich, Brigitte 2011 The Organization of Jade Production at Cancuen, Guatemala. In The Technology of Maya Civilization: Political Economy and Beyond in Lithic Studies, edited by Hruby, Zachary X., Chinchilla, Oswaldo, and Braswell, Geoffrey, pp. 149–161. Equinox Publishing, London.Google Scholar
Kovacevich, Brigitte 2013 The Inalienability of Jades in Ancient Mesoamerica. Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association 23:95–111.Google Scholar
Kovacevich, Brigitte 2017 The Value of Labor: How the Production Process Added Value to Pre-Columbian Maya Jade. In The Value of Things: Commodities in the Maya Region from Prehistoric to Contemporary, edited by Guderjan, Thomas and Matthews, Jennifer, pp. 7–29. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Kovacevich, Brigitte, Crawford, Dawn, Carl, Matthew, Burgess, Maximiliano A., and Young, Marcus L. 2018 Mesoamerican Jades and Greenstones from the Dallas Museum of Art Collection. In Art of the Ancient Americas at the Dallas Museum of Art, edited by Jones, Kimberly L.. Yale University Press, New Haven. In press.Google Scholar
Kovacevich, Brigitte, Neff, Hector, and Bishop, Ronald L. 2005 Laser Ablation ICP-MS Chemical Characterization of Jade from a Jade Workshop in Cancuen, Guatemala. In Laser Ablation ICP-MS in Archaeological Research, edited by Speakman, Robert J. and Neff, Hector, pp. 38–57. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Kovacevich, Brigitte, and Callaghan, Michael 2013 Inalienable Possessions in the Archaeology of Mesoamerica: An Introduction. Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association 23:1–13.Google Scholar
Landry, Rachel 2013 Ancient Maya Stone Polishers and Issues with the Terminology for the Artifacts Polished with these Tools. Master's thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Central Florida, Orlando.Google Scholar
Lange, Fredrick, and Bishop, Ronald 1988 Jade Exchange in Mesoamerica and Central America. In Costa Rican Art and Archaeology, edited by Lange, Frederick, pp. 65–88. University of Press of Colorado, Boulder.Google Scholar
Lesure, Richard 1999 On the Genesis of Value in Early Hierarchical Societies. In Material Symbols: Culture and Economy in Prehistory, edited by Robb, John, pp. 23–55. Center for Archaeological Investigations Occasional Paper No. 26. Center for Archaeological Investigations, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.Google Scholar
Lévi-Strauss, Claude 1949 The Principle of Reciprocity. In Sociological Theory: A Book of Readings, edited by Coser, Lewis and Rosenberg, Bernard, pp. 84–94. Macmillan, New York.Google Scholar
McAnany, Patricia 2010 Ancestral Maya Economies in Archaeological Perspective. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
McVicker, Donald, and Palka, Joel W. 2001 A Maya Carved Shell Plaque from Tula, Hidalgo, Mexico. Ancient Mesoamerica 12:175–197.Google Scholar
Marroquin, Christina 2009 Maya Political Economy: A Spatial, Temporal, and Contextual Analysis of Jade Deposits throughout the Southern Lowlands. Unpublished Master's thesis, School of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Leicester, Leicester.Google Scholar
Marx, Karl 1990 [1876] Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Introduced by Mandel, Ernest and translated by Fowkes, Ben. Penguin, London and New York.Google Scholar
Mason, J. Alden 1927 Native American Jades. Museum Journal 18:46–73.Google Scholar
Masson, Marilyn A., and Freidel, David A. 2012 An Argument for Classic Era Maya Market Exchange. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31:455–484.Google Scholar
Masson, Marilyn A., and Freidel, David A. 2013 Wide Open Spaces: A Long View of the Importance of Maya Market Exchange. In Merchants, Markets, and Exchange in the Pre-Columbian World, edited by Hirth, Kenneth G. and Pillsbury, Joanne, pp. 201–228. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Mauss, Marcel 1990 [1925] The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies. Foreword by Douglas, Mary and translation by Halls, W.D.. W.W. Norton, New York.Google Scholar
Mauss, Marcel 2007 [1924] Essai sur le don: Forme et raison de l’échange dans les societés archaïques. Presses universitaires de France, Paris.Google Scholar
Meskell, Lynn 2005 Archaeologies of Materiality. Blackwell Publishing, Malden.Google Scholar
Mills, Barbara J. 2004 The Establishment and Defeat of Hierarchy: Inalienable Possessions and the History of Collective Prestige Structures in the Pueblo Southwest. American Anthropologist 106:238–251.Google Scholar
Moholy-Nagy, Hattula 1994 Tikal Material Culture: Artifacts and Social Structure at a Classic Lowland Maya City. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Moholy-Nagy, Hattula 1997 Middens, Construction Fill, and Offerings: Evidence for the Organization of Classic Period Craft Production at Tikal, Guatemala. Journal of Field Archaeology 24:293–313.Google Scholar
Morgan, Lewis Henry 1877 Ancient Society. H. Holt, New York.Google Scholar
Morley, Sylvanus G. 1946 The Ancient Maya. Stanford University Press, Stanford.Google Scholar
Palka, Joel 1995 Classic Maya Social Inequality and the Collapse at Dos Pilas, Peten, Guatemala. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville.Google Scholar
Pillsbury, Joanne, Doutriaux, Miriam, Ishihara-Brito, Reiko, and Tokovinine, Alexandre (editors) 2012 Ancient Maya Art at Dumbarton Oaks. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Polanyi, Karl 1957 The Economy as Instituted Process. In Trade and Market in the Early Empires, edited by Polanyi, Karl, Arensberg, Conrad, and Pearson, Harry, pp. 243–270. Free Press, New York.Google Scholar
Proskouriakoff, Tatiana 1974 Jades from the Cenote of Sacrifice, Chichen Itza, Yucatan. Memoirs of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Vol. 10, No. 1–2. Harvard University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Rathje, William 1970 Socio-Political Implications of Lowland Maya Burials: Methodology and Tentative Hypotheses. World Archaeology 1:359–374.Google Scholar
Reents-Budet, Dorie 1994 Painting the Maya Universe. Duke University Press, Durham.Google Scholar
Renfrew, Colin 1975 Trade as Interaction at a Distance: Questions of Integration and Communication. In Ancient Civilization and Trade, edited by Sabloff, Jeremy A. and Lamberg-Karlovsky, C. C., pp. 3–59. School of American Research, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Renfrew, Colin 1977 Alternative Models for Exchange and Spatial Distribution. In Exchange Systems in Prehistory, edited by Ericson, Jonathan E. and Earle, Timothy K., pp. 71–90. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Renfrew, Colin 2007 The Archaeology of Ritual, of Cult, and of Religion. In The Archaeology of Ritual, edited by Kyriakidis, Evangelos, pp. 109–122. Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Renfrew, Colin 2012 Systems of Value among Material Things: The Nexus of Fungibility and Measure. In The Construction of Value in the Ancient World, edited by Papadopoulos, John K. and Urton, Gary, pp. 249–260. Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press, University of California, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Rice, Prudence 1991 Specialization, Standardization, and Diversity: A Retrospective. In Ceramic Legacy of Anna O. Shepard, edited by Bishop, Ronald L. and Lange, Frederick W., pp. 257–279. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.Google Scholar
Rochette, Erick 2009 Jade in Full: Prehispanic Domestic Production of Wealth Goods in the Middle Motagua Valley, Guatemala. Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association 19:205–225.Google Scholar
Rochette, Erick 2014 Out of Control? Rethinking Assumptions about Wealth Goods Production and the Classic Maya. Ancient Mesoamerica 25:165–185.Google Scholar
Rochette, Erick, and Alecio, Monica Pellecer 2008 A quien esta asociado? La produccion artesanal domestica de bienes de estatus en la cuenca media del rio Motagua. In XXI Simposio de investigaciones arqueológicas en Guatemala, 2007, edited by Laporte, Juan Pedro, Arroyo, Barbara, and Mejia, Hector, pp. 47–56. Asociacion Tikal, Guatemala City.Google Scholar
Ruz Lhuillier, Alberto 1955 Uxmal temporada de trabajos 1951–52. Anales del Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia 6:49–67.Google Scholar
Ruz Lhuillier, Alberto 1973 El templo de las inscripciones, Palenque. Colección Científica 7. Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico City.Google Scholar
Sahlins, Marshall 1972 Stone Age Economics. Aldine de Gruyter, New York.Google Scholar
Schele, Linda, and Miller, Mary Ellen 1986 The Blood of Kings: Dynasty and Ritual in Maya Art. George Braziller, New York.Google Scholar
Schmidt, Peter, de la Garza, Mercedes, and Nalda, Enrique (editors) 1998 Maya. Rizzoli, New YorkGoogle Scholar
Sheets, Payson D. 1998 Place and Time in Activity Area Analysis: A Study of Elevated Contexts Used for Artifact Curation at the Ceren Site, El Salvador. Revista Española de antropología Americana 28:63.Google Scholar
Sheets, Payson D. 2000 Provisioning the Ceren Household: The Vertical Economy, Village Economy, and Household Economy in the Southeastern Maya Periphery. Ancient Mesoamerica 11:217–230.Google Scholar
Smith, Augustus Ledyard, and Kidder, Alfred Vincent 1951 Excavations at Nebaj, Guatemala. Carnegie Institution of Washington Publication No. 594. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Sutton, David 2004 Anthropology's Value(s): A Review of David Graeber, Toward An Anthropological Theory of Value: The False Coin of Our Own Dreams. Anthropological Theory 4:373–379.Google Scholar
Taube, Karl 2000 Lightning Celts and Corn Fetishes: The Formative Olmec and the Development of Maize Symbolism in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest. In Olmec Art and Archaeology in Mesoamerica, edited by Clark, John E. and Pye, Mary E., pp. 297–337. Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts and the Publishing Office, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Taube, Karl 2004 Olmec Art at Dumbarton Oaks. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Taube, Karl 2005 The Symbolism of Jade in Classic Maya Religion. Ancient Mesoamerica 16:23–50.Google Scholar
Taube, Karl, Hruby, Zachary X., and Romero, Luis 2006 Jadeite Sources and Ancient Workshops: Archaeological Reconnaissance in the Upper Río El Tambor, Guatemala. Electronic document, http://www.famsi.org/reports/03023es/index.html, accessed June 16, 2017.Google Scholar
Taube, Karl, Hruby, Zachary X., and Romero, Luis 2011 Ancient Jade Workshops: Archaeological Reconnaissance in the Upper Río El Tambor, Guatemala. In The Technology of Maya Civilization: Political Economy and Beyond in Lithic Studies, edited by Hruby, Zachary X., Chinchilla, Oswaldo, and Braswell, Geoffrey, pp. 143–150. Equinox Publishing, London.Google Scholar
Thomas, David H. 1976 Figuring Anthropology: First Principles of Probability and Statistics. Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, New York.Google Scholar
Thompson, Charlotte 1975 A Study of Olmec Art. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Tozzer, Alfred M. 1941 Landa's Relación de las cosas de Yucatán. Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, No. 18. Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Tozzer, Alfred M. 1957 Chichen Itza and its Cenote of Sacrifice: A Comparative Study of Contemporaneous Maya and Toltec. Peabody Museum, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Trumble, William R. 2007 Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. 6th ed. Oxford University Press, Oxford.Google Scholar
Weiner, Annette B. 1985 Inalienable Wealth. American Ethnologist 12:210–227.Google Scholar
Weiner, Annette B. 1992 Inalienable Possessions: The Paradox of Keeping While Giving. University of California Press, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Wright, Rita P. 2013 Commodities and Things: The Kulli in Context. In Connections and Complexity: New Approaches to the Archaeology of South Asia, edited by Abraham, Shinu Anna, Gullapalli, Praveena, Raczek, Teresa P., and Rizvi, Uzma Z., pp. 47–62. Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek.Google Scholar