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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
An Ethnoarchaeological Perspective On Ground Stone Production At The Santiago Quarry In The Casas Grandes Region Of Chihuahua, Mexico, Michael T. Searcy, Todd Pitezel
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 …
Moving From A Grinding Halt: Expanding The Interpretation Of Ground Stone Through Ethnoarchaeology, Michael T. Searcy, Jaime Holthusen
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.