Studies of materials' value in past societies have examined a wide variety of causes for value including, but not limited to, labor, skill, access, cultural associations, and scarcity and abundance. This article examines how scholars can determine which of these causes of value relate to values of landscapes and the materials extracted from those locations, particularly for abundant materials. It draws on an archaeological case study of the availability of chert raw materials for making lithic, or stone, tools for the Late Classic period Maya of western Belize (600–900 CE). In western Belize, chert resources are common but distributed unevenly across the landscape. Despite the ease of access, chert was a valued raw material, and households relied on its extraction as a key economic activity. The economic logic behind resource value can be examined based on a lithic extraction and production area, Callar Creek Quarry. This article, based on excavations of quarry and household contexts and analysis of the resultant materials, finds that the widespread availability of chert resources in the Maya lowlands did not result in these resources being less valuable but that the skill added to the materials through extraction and production increased their value.

中文翻译：

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重视无处不在：伯利兹西部古典时期玛雅人的资源可用性和景观价值

在过去的社会中，对材料价值的研究已经检查了价值的各种原因，包括但不限于劳动力、技能、获取、文化关联以及稀缺性和丰富性。本文探讨了学者们如何确定这些价值原因中的哪些与景观价值以及从这些地点提取的材料有关，特别是对于丰富的材料。它借鉴了一个考古案例研究，该研究说明了伯利兹西部晚期古典时期玛雅人（公元 600-900 年）制造石器或石头工具的燧石原材料的可用性。在伯利兹西部，燧石资源很常见，但在整个景观中分布不均。尽管容易获得，但燧石是一种有价值的原材料，家庭将其提取作为一项关键的经济活动。资源价值背后的经济逻辑可以基于岩石开采和生产区 Callar Creek Quarry 进行检验。本文基于对采石场和家庭环境的挖掘以及对所得材料的分析，发现玛雅低地燧石资源的广泛可用性并未导致这些资源的价值降低，而是通过提取和添加到材料中的技能生产增加了它们的价值。