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Stone on stone: elite involvement in stoneworking at the ancestral Maya site of El Perú-Waka’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 November 2024

Rachel A. Horowitz Open the ORCID record for Rachel A. Horowitz [Opens in a new window] ,
Damien B. Marken  and
Juan Carlos Meléndez
Rachel A. Horowitz*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Washington State University, Pullman, USA
Damien B. Marken
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Sociology, Criminal Justice, and Social Work, Commonwealth University of Pennsylvania-Bloomsburg, USA
Juan Carlos Meléndez
Affiliation:
Archéologie des Amériques, UMR 8096 – CNRS, Université Paris 1 – Panthéon-Sorbonne, France
*
*Author for correspondence ✉ [email protected]
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Abstract

Crafting is often assumed to have been a ‘dirty’ and hence low-status activity: elites managed the supply of materials or distribution of the products, lower-status workers undertook the hard graft. Here, the authors present an in situ stoneworking toolkit from El Perú-Waka’ in the central Maya lowlands of Guatemala. Recovered from a high-status neighbourhood, the tools indicate the involvement of elite crafters in the working of various types of stone and greenstone. The assemblage is discussed with reference to ontological understandings of raw materials in the Maya world and the importance of specialised and ritual knowledge. The results encourage greater consideration of the involvement of elites in craft production across Mesoamerica and beyond.

Keywords

Mesoamericacentral Maya lowlandsMayalithic technologycraftinggreenstone
Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 98 , Issue 402 , December 2024 , pp. 1624 - 1640
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Antiquity Publications Ltd

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