” Scholars have normally assumed that the obsidian trade was managed by Maya rulers, but our research study reveals that this wasnt the case at least in this location,” said Rachel Horowitz, lead author of the study and an assistant teacher of anthropology at Washington State University. “People appear to have had a bargain of financial flexibility consisting of having the ability to go to places similar to the grocery stores we have today to purchase and offer goods from craftsmen.”
Rachel Horowitz. Credit: WSU
While there are extensive composed records from the Maya Postclassic Period (1200-1524 ADVERTISEMENT) on political organization, much less is understood about how societal elites wielded economic power. Horowitz set out to address this knowledge space for the Kiche by taking a look at the production and circulation of obsidian artifacts, which are utilized as a proxy by archeologists to figure out the level of economic development in an area.
She performed technological and geochemical analysis on obsidian artifacts excavated from 50 sites around the Kiche capital of Qumarkaj and the surrounding region to determine where the raw product originally originated from and the methods of its manufacture.
The outcomes revealed that the Kiche got their obsidian from similar sources in the Central Kiche area and Qumarkaj, suggesting a high degree of centralized control. The ruling elite likewise seemed to manage the trade of better forms of nonlocal obsidian, especially Pachua obsidian from Mexico, based off its abundance in these central sites.
Outside this core area though, in locations dominated by the Kiche, there was less resemblance in obsidian economic networks. Horowitzs analysis suggests these sites had access to their own sources of obsidian and developed specialized places where people might go to buy blades and other useful implements made from the rock by specialists.
” For a long time, there has actually been this idea that individuals in the past didnt have market economies, which when you think about it is kind of odd. “The more we look into it, the more we realize there were a lot of various ways in which these peoples lives were similar to ours.”
The Middle American Research Institute at Tulane University loaned Horowitz the obsidian blades and other artifacts she used for her research study. The artifacts were excavated in the 1970s.
Moving on, Horowitz said she prepares to analyze more of the collection, the rest of which is housed in Guatemala, to find further information about how the Maya performed trade, handled their economic systems, and typically set about their lives.
Referral: “Economic Integration and Obsidian Consumption in the Late Postclassic Period Kiche Region” by Rachel A. Horowitz, 9 December 2022, Latin American Antiquity.DOI: 10.1017/ laq.2022.79.
” For a long time, there has been this concept that people in the past didnt have market economies, which when you believe about it is kind of strange. “The more we look into it, the more we understand there were a lot of different ways in which these peoples lives were comparable to ours.”
Obsidian collections from the site of Qumarkaj and the surrounding region. Credit: R. Horowitz
Over 5 hundred years earlier, in the Guatemalan highlands of the Midwest, the Maya individuals traded products with far less intervention from their rulers than formerly thought by lots of archaeologists.
According to a current research study published in the journalLatin American Antiquity, the Kiche ruling elite embraced a hands-off method towards the procurement and trade of obsidian conducted by people outside their central sphere of control.
In these areas, access to nearby sources of obsidian, a glasslike rock utilized to make weapons and tools, was handled by regional individuals through varied and independent acquisition networks. In time, the schedule of obsidian resources and the prevalence of craftsmen to shape it resulted in a system that remains in lots of methods suggestive of modern market-based economies.
