Analysis of chert artifacts from residential households at Mayapan, Yucatan, Mexico

This thesis describes a macroscopic analysis of the chert artifacts from several households at Mayapan, Yucatan, Mexico, in order to determine whether or not there was behavioral variation among the households. The chert artifacts were excavated during the 1992 field season during Dr. Clifford T. Brown's dissertation research and this thesis expands upon his findings. The presence of behavioral variation would provide evidence of a social organization at Mayapan and support Brown's findings that the prehistoric Yucatec Maya government was a segmentary state. Two analyses were performed on the chert artifacts: a general chert analysis and an informal tool analysis. The general chert analysis was performed on 3,777 artifacts from nine households, while the informal tool analysis was performed on 1,151 artifacts from four households. The informal tool analysis was conducted on artifacts that were observed to have use wear during the general chert analysis.