ABSTRACT

Stone raw material in the past was often extracted, processed, and used by different individuals. The relationships among these practices make quarries important spaces for understanding how economic interactions function within society and what role access to resources plays in economic organization. This paper addresses the acquisition of raw materials through a focus on chert and limestone quarrying practices in the Maya area. Using three Classic period (200–950 a.d.) case studies from different sub-regions of the Maya lowlands, we highlight both shared and distinct practices and illustrate the roles that these extraction spaces played within Classic Maya economies. We find that heterogeneous aspects of quarrying techniques throughout the Maya lowlands result from variability in local geologic conditions, management structures, and the intended uses of the raw materials. As a result, this paper establishes methods for archaeologists to integrate quarries into their studies of past economies and anthropogenic landscapes.

摘要

过去的石材原料经常被不同的人提取、加工和使用。这些实践之间的关系使采石场成为理解经济互动如何在社会中发挥作用以及获取资源在经济组织中扮演什么角色的重要空间。本文通过关注玛雅地区的燧石和石灰石采石实践来解决原材料的获取问题。使用三个经典时期（200–950 ad) 来自玛雅低地不同子区域的案例研究，我们强调了共享和不同的实践，并说明了这些提取空间在经典玛雅经济中所扮演的角色。我们发现整个玛雅低地采石技术的异质性是由当地地质条件、管理结构和原材料预期用途的可变性造成的。因此，本文为考古学家建立了将采石场整合到他们对过去经济和人为景观研究中的方法。