Obsidian Craft Production at Cacaxtla-Xochitécatl, Tlaxcala

Lithic Deposit LD-E1

Excavation on the west side of Edificio E1 also recovered a small but dense concentration of small production debitage on its main lower terrace. Edificio E1 is the largest ceremonial structure on Cerro Xochitécatl (Photo 5, shown below). It is 165 m long (E-W), 120 m wide (N-S) and rises to a height of 30 m above the plaza surface (Figure 2). The main body of this structure was constructed during the Late Formative period, and was subsequently reoccupied during the Epiclassic period (A.D. 650-900). Archaeological materials date this lithic concentration to the Epiclassic period when Cerro Xochitécatl was a secondary civic-ceremonial zone within the greater site of Cacaxtla-Xochitécatl. It was during this period that Cacaxtla-Xochitécatl was an important military center (García Cook 1981), its well known murals were painted (Foncerada de Molina 1993), and the site is reputed to have been the capital of Olmeca-Xicalanca groups who entered Central Mexico at this time (Armillas 1946; Muñoz Camargo 1984).

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While this lithic concentration was correctly identified as obsidian production debitage (Blanco 1998), it was not a primary production locale. Reanalysis of field notes and the excavation catalog indicate that all of the production debitage was recovered from a single plain ceramic vessel (catalog No. 3133) that was 22 cm in diameter. The vessel was removed with its dirt contents and 15 associated canto rodados (probably hammerstones) to the laboratory. Here the dirt contents were removed and the obsidian debitage recovered. There was no indication that any production debitage was seen in the field; all debitage was confined to the vessel.

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Table 3 summarizes the materials recovered within the vessel interior. All lithic debris was small, the vast majority of which was 1/8-1/4 inch in diameter. A total of 87.8% of the obsidian debris was grey obsidian; the remainder (12.2%) was green obsidian from the Pachuca obsidian source. A small amount of evidence was found for core shaping using percussion techniques, primarily decortication of blocky obsidian and shaping polyhedral cores with narrow macroblades. Polyhedral cores were transformed into pressure cores resulting in the production of large numbers of initial series (1s, 2s) and triangular pressure blades. Over one-half of the debitage (52.9%) was waste from the production of prismatic blades, most of which (76.9%) were produced from cores with pecked and ground platforms (Photo 6, shown above). A large quantity of waste from blade sectioning activities (9.9%) was recovered although the number of blade artifacts produced was small. I suspect that most of this waste was produced from processing snapped blade segments from prismatic blades. Core rejuvenation was not practiced and the presence of corner blade segments in the collection indicate that half-conical cores continued to be used during the Epiclassic period. No evidence for biface production was found in these deposits.

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