Excavation is continuing at the site the monumental architecture and persistent tradition of sculpture in a variety of styles suggest the site was of some importance. The site includes a Maya royal tomb and examples of Maya hieroglyphic inscriptions that are among the earliest from the Maya region. Takalik Abaj is representative of the first blossoming of Maya culture that had occurred by about 400 BC. Responsible body: Ministerio de Cultura y Deportes / Proyecto Nacional Tak'alik Ab'aj Miguel Orrego Corzo Marion Popenoe de Hatch Christa Schieber de Lavarreda Claudia Wolley Schwarz Rather, the inhabitants of Palo Errado may have been exchanging and obtaining obsidian commodities within local and regional marketplaces.El Asintal, Retalhuleu Department, Guatemala In general the production and consumption of obsidian does not suggest its use in a local political economy. In the case of the Mound 9 residents, the ceramic and obsidian assemblage suggests that their economic independence corresponded to a physical and ideological separation from the rest of the site. While the vast majority of the obsidian artifacts recovered were made from Zaragoza-Oyameles obsidian, significant intrasite variation in minor sources, as well as the types of blades recovered and degree of edge wear suggests that the elite and nonelite participated independently in a variety of obsidian provisioning networks. However, no change in how blades are used by the elite is evident in this transition. At some point in the Early Classic period, the elite of the site undergo a significant change that intensifies their use of status markers, such as serving ware and personal adornment that corresponds to a decrease in elite blade production and an increase in blade consumption. In addition, detailed ceramic and obsidian data from excavated contexts demonstrate that the elite were involved in blade production and consumption, while the inhabitants of Mound 9, a non-elite, residential workshop locus, were specializing in prismatic blade production for exchange. There, the recovery of macrodebitage, as well as eraillure flakes, platform overhang flakes, and debitage with 90 degree angles between dorsal scars indicates that local blade production occurred at the site from imported marcocores and large polyhedral cores. Intrasite variation in the production and consumption of obsidian prismatic blades is investigated at the Protoclassic to early Late Classic period site of Palo Errado in Veracruz, Mexico. At the same time, however, they continued to participate in exchange networks that tied them to other areas of central Mexico, independently from other contemporaneous sites in the southern Gulf lowlands. Temporal variation in quantity of supplemental obsidian sources and their use in different reduction technologies suggest that consumers at Palo Errado had access to abundant Zaragoza-Oyameles obsidian of a quality high enough to facilitate the production of fine prismatic blades. The presence of Ucareo and the use of Otumba in core- blade reduction, for instance, set Palo Errado apart from contemporary sites in the southern Gulf lowlands. However, the NAA results from Palo Errado indicate that while the local obsidian economy was dominated by prismatic blade technology utilizing Zaragoza- Oyameles obsidian, five additional highland Mexican sources were used during the Early Classic period. Our understanding of Classic period obsidian economies in the southern Gulf lowlands has been largely informed by studies of the political economies of the highland Mexican cities of Teotihuacan and Cantona, who appear to have controlled the Pachuca and Otumba, and Zaragoza- Oyameles obsidian sources, respectively. Abbreviated Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) was carried out on a sample of obsidian artifacts from the Terminal Formative to early Late Classic period site of Palo Errado, located in the southern Gulf lowlands of Veracruz, Mexico.
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