Ground Platform Preparation and the “Banalization” of the Prismatic Blade in Western Mesoamerica

Abstract

For much of their history, prismatic blades were a relatively scarce item whose restricted occurrence suggested they functioned as prestige or luxury items. Some time prior to the Postclassic period, however, they became a widespread, ubiquitous, and mundane commodity in Mesoamerica, as indicated by ethnohistorical accounts as well as archaeological evidence. This occurred around the same time that blademakers began to prepare core platforms by pecking and grinding, a labor intensive process whose advantages are presumed to have played the primary role. The specific causal relationships involved, however, appear to pertain less to factors of increased productivity on the part of individual blademakers than to those of skill, as suggested by comparisons between core/blade technology used in areas close to obsidian sources and those used at sites further removed from the sources.But the truth is that they are cheap, and one doesn't mind using them up.-Torquemada (after Fletcher 1970) E-mail correspondence to: healan@tulane.edu 1 Kirchhoff did, however, mention "wooden swords with flint or obsidian chips along their edges," referring to the Aztec macuahuitl inset with obsidian prismatic blade segments.

Prismatic Blade Production in the Lower Cacaulapa Valley, Honduras: Implications for a Late Classic Political Economy

“…Sheets (1983:95) noted for El Salvadoran assemblages that striation is the most common preparation technique during the Late Classic, with ground platforms increasing in frequency from the Terminal Classic into the Postclassic (AD 1100–1530). A similar chronological pattern is noted in central Mexico and western Mesoamerica (Healan 2009:104). Platform treatments, therefore, suggest that the occupation of Site PVC162 spans the Late Classic into the early part of the Terminal Classic.…”

The Archaeology of Tula, Hidalgo, Mexico

“…7, H) partially exposed a workshop that contained distinct living, working, and refuse dumping areas (Healan 1986;Healan et al 1983) and produced prismatic cores and blades from imported polyhedral (percussion) cores (Healan 2002(Healan , 2003. Obsidian residue indicate that the actual core/blade reduction loci were located outdoors (Healan 1997), although core platform grinding appears to have taken place inside the residential compound (Healan 2009b). Both the residential compound and the outdoor work area were relatively free of production waste, most of which was encountered in a peripheral refuse dump underlying the highest surface obsidian densities in the locality.…”

“…However, I have previously suggested (Healan 2009b), noting the apparently low production volume of Tula's workshops, that ground platforms were of greatest value to blade makers whose low volume of production made it difficult to maintain adequate levels of skill. Recalling that the Tula workshops were apparently involved in multiple craft activities, not only was the use of ground platforms an adaptation to multicrafting, but it may in turn have fostered multicrafting by making blade making attractive to other craft specialists seeking to diversify production.…”

Obsidian and Household Ritual at Xochitecatl-Cacaxtla

“…Although life history approaches can trace the lineage of any given artifact, they may also examine broad categories of obsidian artifacts in terms of their variable origins and patterns of physical modification (see Ward 2004:12). In Mesoamerica, raw obsidian was transformed into prismatic blades through a series of variable production stages (Clark and Bryant 1997;Sheets 1975) that could occur across considerable units of space and time (see Healan 2009). While chunks of obsidian were typically reduced into macro-cores at or near the quarry, the successive steps, including further reduction to polyhedral core and actual blade making, often occurred elsewhere (e.g., Cobean 2002:151;Pastrana 2002:22-24).…”