Abstract
The consumer aspect of stone-tool manufacture is an important factor for lithic studies concerned with craft specialization and exchange systems. The dynamic nature of stone-tool production/exchange/use systems can be understood through a technological analysis of producer site assemblages and a functional and technological examination of consumer sites. Chipped-stone assemblages from the producer site of Colha, Belize, and the consumer site of Santa Rita Corozal, Belize, indicate opposing but interdependent roles within the same exchange system. Preclassic formal tools such as the oval biface and stemmed macroblade were manufactured at workshops in Colha and exhibit a high degree of specialization and standardization in manufacture. These formal tools were then exchanged beyond the chert-bearing zone of northern Belize to consumer sites such as Santa Rita. Once these formal tools entered the consumption sphere they were used, broken, discarded, or recycled into a variety of second-order expedient tools.
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