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EXPLORING FORMATIVE PERIOD OBSIDIAN BLADE TRADE: THREE DISTRIBUTION MODELS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 August 2009

Jason P. De León ,
Kenneth G. Hirth  and
David M. Carballo
Jason P. De León*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195-3100, USA
Kenneth G. Hirth
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA
David M. Carballo
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA
*
E-mail correspondence to: jpdeleon@u.washington.edu
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Abstract

Obsidian prismatic blades were widely traded across Mesoamerica during the Early and Middle Formative periods. However, it was not until the Late Formative period (400 b.c.—a.d. 100) that prismatic blade cores began to be exchanged extensively. Although it is generally accepted that the trading of blades preceded the trading of cores by almost 1,000 years, little is know about the structure of blade trading during the Early and Middle Formative periods. We describe three distributional models for the trade of obsidian prismatic blades: whole-blade trade, processed-blade trade, and local-blade production. These models were evaluated using obsidian consumption data from Oaxaca, the Basin of Mexico, and Tlaxcala. The results indicate that Formative period blade trade involved different forms over time and space.

Type
Special Section: New Directions in the Study of Mesoamerican Lithic Economy
Information
Ancient Mesoamerica , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , Spring 2009 , pp. 113 - 128
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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