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An Ethnoarchaeological Perspective On Ground Stone Production At The Santiago Quarry In The Casas Grandes Region Of Chihuahua, Mexico, Michael T. Searcy, Todd Pitezel

Faculty Publications

Grinding stones, and more specifically manos and metates, are ubiquitous tools found at archaeological sites throughout the Americas. These tools were important, even to foragers, and grew in importance with the spread of agriculture, especially maize cultivation. Analyses of grinding stones recovered from archaeological sites are a common aspect of site reports, but these tend to generate data that emphasize the middle and end of the use-lives of these tools (Searcy 2011:8). The prehistoric manufacture of ground stone tools has received scant attention, and we suggest this may be due to two primary factors. First, the quarries where much of …