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A Comparative Evaluation of the Producer-Consumer Model for Lithic Exchange in Northern Belize, Central America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Rebecca McSwain
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Abstract

New lithic data from the early Maya site of Cuello in northern Belize provide a basis for examining a production-consumption model for intersite exchange of stone tools. Comparison of lithic evidence from Cuello, Pulltrouser Swamp, and Cerros, putative consumer communities, with evidence from Colhá, the production community, suggests that during the Late Preclassic two highly standardized formal tools were manufactured at Colhá and distributed to northern Belizean communities as a finished product. Those communities also obtained Colhá-like material in less-reduced form for local manufacture of other formal tools. The availability of a high-quality chert source in large nodules may have been an enabling factor in Late Preclassic regional developments, including agricultural intensification.

Se presentan nuevos datos líticos de Cuello, un sitio maya antiguo en el norte de Belice. También se está examinando un modelo de producción y consumo, delineando el intercambio regional de herramientas líticas, y tomando en consideración estos nuevos datos. La comparación de datos líticos de Cuello, Pulltrouser Swamp y Cerros, pueblos consumidores, con datos de Colhá, pueblo productor, sugiere que durante el Preclásico Tardío por lo menos dos tipos de herramientas de morfología formal fabricadas en Colhá se distribuyeron a los otros pueblos del norte de Belice. Al mismo tiempo, esos pueblos obtenían el pedernal de Colhá en formas menos reducidas, para la fabricación de unas otras herramientas. La presencia de una fuente de pedernal de buen calidad en nódulos grandes podía haber sido factor importante en el desarollo agrícola en la región.

Type
Articles
Information
Latin American Antiquity , Volume 2 , Issue 4 , December 1991 , pp. 337 - 351
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 1991

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References

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