Provenience Analysis of Obsidians from the Central Peten Lakes Region, Guatemala

Abstract

A set of 296 obsidian artifacts from the lakes area of the Department of Peten, Guatemala, has been provenienced by X-ray fluorescence and neutron activation analysis. The obsidians come from socioeconomic contexts (primarily rural/domestic) and time periods—from the Middle Preclassic period, ca. 800 B.C., up to the time of Spanish contact, A.D. 1525—that have been poorly represented in previous Lowland provenience studies. Thus they provide new data on the acquisition and distribution of this important non-local commodity in the Maya Lowlands.