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Lithic Workshops Revisited: Comments on Moholy-Nagy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Thomas R. Hester  and
Harry J. Shafer
Thomas R. Hester
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712
Harry J. Shafer
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843
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Abstract

Moholy-Nagy (1990) has argued that concentrations of chipped-stone debitage from mesoamerican sites, including Colhá, Belize, represent dumps and not workshops as we have suggested (Shafer and Hester 1983, 1986). She emphasizes microdebitage as the most reliable indicator of workshop location. Her argument is supported by the use of ethnoarchaeological accounts of debitage deposition from stone- and glass-artifact manufacture. Our alternative view is that microdebitage is only one of several criteria for identifying the loci of intensive stone-tool making. The Colhá data are also used to demonstrate variability in behaviors related to the formation of debitage deposits and the visibility of workshop activity. We contend that identifying precise manufacturing loci is less important than assessing the overall scale of production at a site and that site"s role in regional settlement systems.

Moholy-Nagy (1990) ha argumentado que las concentraciones de desechos de piedra pulida en sitios mesoamericanos, incluyendo Colhá, representan basureros y no talleres como hemos sugerido (Shafer y Hester 1983, 1986). Ella ha puesto énfasis en los microdesechos como los indicadores más confiables de los sitios de talleres. Su disputa es apoyada por el uso de relatos etnoarqueológicos de la disposición de desechos de fabricación de artefactos de piedra y vidrio volcánico. Nuestro punto de vista es que la presencia de microdesechos es solamente uno de los varios criterios para identificar lugares de fabricación intensiva de herramientas de piedra. Los datos de Colhá también se usan para demostrar la variabilidad en los comportamientos y la visibilidad de las actividades de taller. Argumentamos que la identificación precisa de los lugares de fabricación es menos importante que la evaluación de la escala general de la producción en un sitio y el papel de ese sitio en sistemas regionales de asentamiento.

Type
Comments
Information
Latin American Antiquity , Volume 3 , Issue 3 , September 1992 , pp. 243 - 248
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 1992

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