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The Pre-Columbian Obsidian Industry of El Chayal, Guatemala

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Michael D. Coe  and
Kent V. Flannery
Michael D. Coe
Affiliation:
Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
Kent V. Flannery
Affiliation:
University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
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Abstract

El Chayal is an extensive obsidian workshop site in an area of major obsidian deposits northeast of Guatemala City. Surface collections include a great number of elongated, unretouched flakes that were probably used as blanks, stemmed projectile points resembling the Wells type, shouldered knives, very large discoidal scrapers, a heavy chopper, bifacial utility implements, and large unretouched blades similar to that found with the Iztapan mammoth in Mexico. Pre-Columbian pottery does not occur. On the basis of this absence, and from a comparison of the artifacts with stone tools from other regions in Mesoamerica, it is believed that the El Chayal industry can be dated to the middle and late Archaic period, roughly from 5000 to 1500 B.C.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 30 , Issue 1 , July 1964 , pp. 43 - 49
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1964

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