Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Late Preclassic Period Lithic Production and Exchange at Hamontun, Guatemala.

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Under the direction of Dr. Marilyn A. Masson, Jason Paling will document the economic institutions of Maya society that underwrote the foundations of emerging state societies in the Petén region of Guatemala during the Late Preclassic Period (300 B.C. - 250 A.D.). His comparative analysis of systems and strategies of stone tool production and exchange in ancient domestic contexts will include samples from the humblest dwellings to palatial noble dwellings. Stone tool use was essential to all facets of everyday life, including clearing and tilling agricultural fields, firewood extraction, wood-working, house-building, hunting, warfare, and skilled masonry and plaster-working linked to monument construction. Economic production and consumption activities linked to stone tools were complex; raw materials of varying quality from near and distant quarries were imbued with different value, as were final products involving a range of skills and craftsmanship. The study of household workshop debris and tool assemblages will determine the accessibility of utilitarian and luxury items and will identify links between occupational specialization and social class. The archaeological city of Hamontún is located in northeastern Guatemala, where the largest Maya cities were located during the Preclassic and Classic Periods (300 B.C. - 900 A.D.). Hamontún's urban setting is ideal for the proposed research. The household inventories of elites and commoners will be analyzed to document the degree of involvement of elites in stone tool production and exchange, or conversely, the degree to which commoners operated autonomously from noble intervention. This investigation directly addresses a problem of great importance - the economic foundations of ancient Maya governments - about which there is no consensus and little data, especially for the Late Preclassic Period. Archaeologists currently disagree about the degree to which the affluence and power of the noble class was rooted in the economies of daily life at Maya cities. It is known that they engaged in the manufacture and exchange of fine craft items (other than stone tools), exacted tribute from subordinate towns, and dispensed gifts at elaborate gatherings. Did craftspersons at noble houses also make the tools needed to house, maintain, and feed royal retinues, or were these also obtained by tribute demands placed on urban or rural commoners? Were marketplace exchanges significant as an alternative distributive mechanism at Preclassic Maya cities? This study articulates with a higher theoretical goal of reconstructing ancient urban life across social class categories. The documentation of stone tool production and exchange systems will document key economic and sociopolitical relationships at a time when urban life was first developing in the Maya area. These data will facilitate cross-cultural comparisons between the Maya and the emergent economies of other state societies in world history. This project will also contribute to the professional development of students from the Universidad de Valle and San Carlos, Guatemala, and the University of Albany-SUNY who will gain valuable training in archaeological research. The construction of a website is planned that will make the project's findings accessible to the public, while publications will communicate the results to the scientific community.