Pre-Maya Lithic Technology in the Wetlands of Belize: The Chipped Stone from Crawford Bank

• Autores: W. James Stemp, Eleanor Harrison-Buck
• Localización: Lithic technology, ISSN 0197-7261, Vol. 44, Nº. 4, 2019, págs. 183-198
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Excavations at Crawford Bank in Crooked Tree, Belize, exposed a lithic deposit with no associated ceramics. The deposit primarily consists of chipped chert and chalcedony tools and debitage, as well as a small number of worked slate fragments. Most of the chert likely sources to the Northern Belize Chert-bearing Zone (NBCZ). The recovery of two Archaic period formal tools – a Lowe point and a constricted uniface/trimmed macroblade – suggests a pre-Maya occupation. Use-wear analysis of both tools and debitage demonstrates a wide range of uses with a focus on wood and hard contact materials. The use-wear patterns demonstrate a heavy reliance on ad hoc/expedient technology for the completion of different tasks involving wood by preceramic peoples. The Crawford Bank site likely represents one or more short-term, task-orientated preceramic occupation(s) for the extraction and use of the available resources of the local wetland environment, most notably logwood.