Obsidian Procurement in the Central Peten Lakes Region, Guatemala

Abstract

Obsidian artifacts have been recovered from excavations into primarily rural/domestic contexts in the basins of six lakes in the Central Peten of Guatemala. These artifacts represent all periods of Maya prehistory from the early Middle Preclassic to the Late Postclassic. This data set permits long-term study of changing patterns of distribution of this commodity; investigation of its availability to a socioeconomic sector of Lowland Maya society not well represented in previous studies; and examination of changes in access to exotic goods as a function of broader fluctuations in political fortunes in the area through time. The Central Peten lakes area clearly had low access to obsidian as well as to other exotic goods in the Preclassic and Classic periods, when the region sampled was rural and largely peripheral to the great centers in the interior. During the Late Classic period, however, changed patterns of obsidian distribution made it more available to the inhabitants of the lakes region. In the Postclassic period, the Peten lakes region was no longer rural, and greater quantities of obsidian and other exotics offer support for hypotheses of the role of the area in trade activities.