Thomas R. Hester

Ancient Maya Chert Workshops in Northern Belize, Central America

Recent archaeological work at Colha and at other localities in the geographically restricted chert-bearing zone of northern Belize has revealed large-scale exploitation of chert for stone tool production. Workshops dated during the Late Preclassic period signal the beginning of craft specialization in chert working that continued in the Late Classic and into the Early Postclassic periods. Secular items such as large oval bifaces, tranchet bit tools and prismatic blades, as well as nonsecular eccentrics and stemmed macroblade artifacts are disctive of the Late Preclassic and Late Classic workshops. The distribution sphere of Preclassic and Classic period chert tools has been traced to several contemporaneous sites that lie beyond the chert-bearing zone to the north. Colha has been identified as the primary production and distribution center during the Late Preclassic period; although it remained a production center in the Late Classic period, the main center for distribution may have shifted to Altun Ha.

Cacao usage by the earliest Maya civilization.

The Maya archaeological site at Colha in northern Belize, Central America, has yielded several spouted ceramic vessels that contain residues from the preparation of food and beverages. Here we analyse dry residue samples by using high-performance liquid chromatography coupled to atmospheric-pressure chemical-ionization mass spectrometry, and show that chocolate (Theobroma cacao) was consumed by the Preclassic Maya as early as 600 bc, pushing back the earliest chemical evidence of cacao use by some 1,000 years. Our application of this new and highly sensitive analytical technique could be extended to the identification of other ancient foods and beverages.

Lithic craft specialization and product distribution at the Maya site of Colha, Belize

Abstract More than a decade of research has been conducted at the Maya site of Colha in northern Belize. These investigations have demonstrated that lithic craft specialization flourished there for perhaps two millennia. Archaeological evidence reveals that both utilitarian and non‐utilitarian tools were exported in large numbers to regional Maya consumers.

Exploitation of chert resources by the ancient Maya of northern Belize, Central America

Abstract The region of the Maya Lowlands that is now northern Belize has two major lithic resources that were utilized by prehistoric populations. The major resource is chert, restricted to a 500‐square kilometre zone. To the west and north, geologic faults have exposed outcroppings of chalcedony, a much poorer quality material, in this instance, for stone tool manufacture. The fine‐grained cherts were utilized as early as Paleo‐Indian and Archaic times, atlhough the intensive use of this raw material began in the Maya Late Preclassic, around 250 B.C. This is best documented at the site of Colha, the locus of stone tool mass production for more than 1000 years. Chert nodules were collected or quarried with minimal effort from surface exposures and there is also evidence of shallow pit mining activity. From Colha, formal tools made from these cherts were exported to Maya communities outside the chert‐bearing zone, where they were used as axes, adzes, and hoes and greatly augmented a limited range of expedi...

Preceramic Connections between Yucatan and the Caribbean

Archaeologists have long noted similarities between the lithic artifacts of the first colonists of the Greater Antilles (ca. 3500-2000 B.C.) and those from the eastern Yucatdn Peninsula. Recent archaeological work in northern Belize has provided additional archaeological information on the characteristics and dating of the mainland assemblages. New findings by Caribbean archaeologists also have contributed to a clearer picture of the circumstances surrounding the first human migration to the Greater Antilles. A Yucatecan origin for the first Caribbean migrants is now considered probable.

Maya Stone-Tool Craft Specialization and Production at Colha, Belize: Reply to Mallory

Santley, R. S., J. M. Kerley, and R. R. Kneebone 1983 Obsidian Working, Long Distance Exchange, and the Politicoeconomic Organization of Early States in Central Mexico. Paper presented at the 48th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Pittsburgh. Shafer, H. J., and T. R. Hester 1983 Ancient Maya Chert Workshops in Northern Belize, Central America. American Antiquity 48:519543. Sidrys, R. V. 1976 Classic Maya Obsidian Trade. American Antiquity 41:449-464. Spence, M. W. 1981 Obsidian Production and the State at Teotihuacan. American Antiquity 46:769-788. Willey, G. R., and R. M. Leventhal 1978 Prehistoric Settlement at Copan. In Maya Archaeology and Ethnohistory, edited by N. Hammond and G. R. Willey. University of Texas Press, Austin.

Lithic Workshops Revisited: Comments on Moholy-Nagy

Moholy-Nagy (1990) has argued that concentrations of chipped-stone debitage from mesoamerican sites, including Colha, Belize, represent dumps and not workshops as we have suggested (Shafer and IIester I 983, 1986). She emphasizes microdebitage as the most reliable indicator of workshop location. Her argument is supported by the use of ethnoarchaeological accounts of debitage deposition from stoneand glass-artifact manufacture. Our alternative view is that microdebitage is only one of several criteria for identifying the loci of intensive stone-tool making. The Colha data are also used to demonstrate variablity in behaviors related to the formation of debitage deposits and the visibility of workshop activity. We contend that identifying precise manufacturing loci is less important than assessing the overall scale of production at a site and that sites role in regional settlement systems.

Strohacker Site: a Review of Pre-Archaic Manifestations in Texas

Investigations at the Strohacker site in central Texas produced a number of late Paleo-lndian and pre-Archaic artifacts. These are described and the site is compared to several other Texas sites from which similar artifacts were recovered in recent years. On the basis of present evidence, it is proposed that the latter part of the Paleo-lndian period ended in parts of Texas around 6000 B.C. and was followed by a transitional pre Archaic phase which extended throughout the Altither mal. This phase was succeeded by a developed Archaic tradition about 3500 B.C.

The Colossi of Memnon Revisited: Recent research has established the source of the stone of the two 720-ton statues at Thebes

The only areas that are likely to have furnished the original stone for the Colossi of Memnon are near Cairo (Gebel el Ahmar), Aswan, and possibly Silsileh. Neutron activation analysis of samples from the colossi shows them to be distinctly different from samples obtained from the three known quarries near Aswan and from the quarries near Silsileh and Edfu, but very similar to samples obtained from Gebel el Ahmar. Petrographic analysis of colossi and quarry samples also provides strong evidence that the colossi came from Gebel el Ahmar. The blocks used by the engineers of Septimius Severus to reconstruct the north colossus were shown by neutron activation analysis to have originated from a deposit other than Gebel el Ahmar. The composition of these blocks conformed with samples taken from the quarries 8 and 9 km north of Edfu (the quartzite deposit closest to Thebes) and from the Aswan quarries. Petrographic analysis associated these reconstruction blocks with Edfu but not with Aswan. Neutron activation analysis of other artifacts in the area of the colossi indicates that they also came from Cairo rather than Aswan.

Relationships between Early Preclassic and Early Middle Preclassic Phases in Northern Belize: A Comment on “Lowland Maya Archaeology at the Crossroads”

In a recent paper, Marcus (1983) provides a timely synthesis of the rapidly accumulating body of data from various projects in the Maya Lowlands. One of the specific problems discussed by Marcus is that of temporal and cultural definition of the Swasey phase at the sites of Cuello and Colha, and its relationship to other early components. Our comment presents new data from Colha that were not available to Marcus. These data have significantly expanded our understanding of the earliest occupations at the site and have important implications ,for intersite comparisons.