Occupied continuously for 1,500 years, Tikal was the most important demographic, economic, administrative, and ritual center of its region. The collection of materials recovered at Tikal is the largest and most diverse known from the Lowlands. This book provides a major body of primary data. The artifacts, represented by such raw materials as chert and shell are classified by type, number, condition, possible ancient use, form, material, size, and such secondary modifications as decoration and reworking, as well as by spatial distribution, occurrence in the various types of structure groups, recovery context, and date. The same format, with the exception of typology, is used for unworked materials such as mineral pigments and vertebrate remains. While few artifact reports go beyond a catalog of objects organized by type or raw material, this report puts the materials into their past cultural contexts and thus is of interest to a wide range of scholars. Content of this book's CD-ROM may be found online at this location: http://core.tdar.org/document/376593.
Hattula Moholy-Nagy is a Research Associate of the American Section of the University Museum.
IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsAbbreviations1. Introduction2. Flaked Chert Artifacts3. Flaked Obsidian Artifacts4. Ground, Pecked, and Polished Stone Artifacts and Unworked Stones and Minerals5. Bone Artifacts and Unworked Vertebrate Remains6. Pottery Sherd Artifacts7. Formed Pottery Artifacts8. Artifacts of Mud, Plaster, and Unfired Clay9. Textiles and Textile Impressions10. Wooden Artifacts and Artifact Impressions11. Plant Remains and Impressions and Other Non-Artifactual Materials AppendicesA-G. (located on the CD-ROM)H. Report on the Tektites Found at Tikal, Alan R. HildebrandI. Analysis of Textile Impressions and Cloth Fragments from TikalJ. The Atlatl from Operation 96D, Structure 5D-51, Group 5D-11, Tikal ReferencesFiguresIndex