The Ancient Maya Craft Community at Colha, Belize, and Its External Relationships

Abstract

Over the past deeade, extensive fieldwork and laboratory analysis have focused on the archaeological record at Colha, in northern Belize.Numerous published papers, along with doctoral dissertations and masters' theses, have provided considerable detail on the chronology, settlement pattern, technologies, and economie foeus of this site.Most of the available literature is eoneerned with the stone tool prodllction aspect of Colha, the craft-specialized activity that this represents, and the distribution of lithie artifacts produeed at Colha at sites in northern Belize and adjaeent areas (e.g.Hester and Shafer 1984Shafer , 1987;;Hester 1985; Shafer and Hester 1986).A separate paper by King and Potter (1989), addresses the nature and role of the Colha eommunity through more than two thousand years of oeeupation.Our paper is a rather straightforward attempt to briefly summarize the lithie teehnology of Colha and to examine the manner in whieh the lithie eommodities from the site were acquired and utilized by Maya consumers outside the Colha settlement area.We will spare the reader the detailed debate over the eharacterization of craft specialization at Colha, and refer instead to the papers by Mallory (1986) and Shafer and Hester (1986a) that appeared in American Antiquity (the reader should also see Clark 1986Clark , 1987, for a cogent review of the eriteria for recognizing eraft specialization).First, let us brietly note the level of the Colha eommunity from Middle Preclassie throllgh Middle Postclassic times.At both ends of this spectrum, it represented a small village 01'hamlet, though our knowledge of the arehiteeture and spatiallayout of Colha in Middle Preclassie times (ea.1000 B.C.-250 B.e.) is still very rudimentary.Maximllm expansion was clearly in the Late Preclassie and the Late Classie.Not only are the ehert workshops abundant at these times, but there is also settlement expansion

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