Chipped Stone Tool Use in the Maya Coastal Economies of Marco Gonzalez and San Pedro, Ambergris Caye, Belize

Description

The Maya sites of Marco Gonzalez and San Pedro are located on the southern end of Ambergris Caye, off the coast of modern-day Belize. Analysis of the stone tools recovered from excavations at Marco Gonzalez and San Pedro and a study of the use-wear patterns on these artifacts reveals that the Maya from both sites were primarily engaged in subsistence-based activities with a limited amount of small-scale craft production. Use-wear evidence suggests that most of these activities focused on the exploitation of local resources necessary in everyday life. In addition to local and regional trade of marine resources and salt, the sites served as transshipment points for long-distance exchange along the coast. Such relationships assisted the Maya from southern Ambergris Caye in surviving the breakdown in trade relations and depopulation that plagued other Maya centres in the Late to Terminal Classic periods and well into the Late Postclassic.