Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Moving From A Grinding Halt: Expanding The Interpretation Of Ground Stone Through Ethnoarchaeology, Michael T. Searcy, Jaime Holthusen

Faculty Publications

Some of the most ubiquitous artifacts found at archaeological sites across Mesoamerica are manos and metates. Yet these important household implements continue to be underrepresented in the archaeological literature. This paper highlights recent ethnographic research on groundstone produced and used by four Mayan communities in Guatemala. We demonstrate how the size of grinding surfaces can be indicative of function, and how modern taboos can be examined to explore notions of gender. Groundstone from the site of La Quemada, Mexico is then analyzed in light of such inferences to evaluate the consistency of archaeological patterning with ethnographic observations.