A FAMSI-SPONSORED CONFERENCE REPORT

The Conference on Ancient Mesoamerican Obsidian Blade Production

Results And Conclusions

The conclusion of the invited participants was that the conference was a success. It discussed and critically evaluated the suitability of current obsidian production models and sought a new synthesis of the factors structuring obsidian blade production across ancient Mesoamerica. The conclusion reached was that pressure blades were not manufactured following a single production sequence. Instead, examination of the archaeological assemblages from Kaminaljuyú and Xochicalco revealed considerable variability in the techniques employed to manufacture prismatic blades. Obsidian craftsmen across Mesoamerica produced pressure blades using multiple manufacturing techniques organized into different production sequences. In reflection it is perhaps more amazing, not that multiple techniques would be employed, but that they resulted in relatively standardized prismatic blades across the length and breadth of Mesoamerica. Current and future research and publications of the participants will reflect this conclusion. We will be careful not to imply that technology was a constant across this vast area.

The conference facilitated discussion, debate, comparison of archaeological collections, and direct experimentation. The process was very productive. We came to a general agreement that almost certainly, in places where obsidian was scarce, that a hand-held pressure technique was employed to maximize the removal of blades from small cores. Experimentation at the conference demonstrated that not only was the technique possible, but that the blades it produced were virtually indistinguishable from those recovered from archaeological contexts. The results of our experiments with indirect percussion were less conclusive. The large size blades recovered from Kaminaljuyú remain a mystery. Indirect percussion remains a possibility although more research is necessary to understand if and how it may have been employed. Alternative possibilities include the use of levers in pressure blade production or a modified version of the Aztec foot-held technique.

A general consensus emerged during the conference that we needed a new perspective for the causes of technological variability encountered in core-blade production. Throughout the conference we discussed how different factors could affect the technology employed. These included distance to obsidian sources, variable transportation constraints and a myriad of social and political conditions that could affect the structure and intensity of interregional exchange. Although there was no consensus among conference participants on the relative strength of these variables, we did agree that distance to obsidian sources was a constant that had an ever present influence on shaping the type of technology employed in different regions.

Not surprisingly, the author of this report like the other conference participants, emerged with more new questions to be answered than there were old questions answered. It is perhaps in this regard that the conference was most productive. We all left the conference with new ideas and opinions about the structure of Mesoamerican core-blade production industries. I believe that the conference successfully met its objectives and has helped to define a new set of questions which will stimulate investigations of Mesoamerican core-blade technology into the coming decade.

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