Abstract :
For much of their history, prismatic blades were a relatively scarce item whose restricted occurrence suggested they functioned as prestige
or luxury items. Some time prior to the Postclassic period, however, they became a widespread, ubiquitous, and mundane commodity in
Mesoamerica, as indicated by ethnohistorical accounts as well as archaeological evidence. This occurred around the same time that
blademakers began to prepare core platforms by pecking and grinding, a labor intensive process whose advantages are presumed to have
played the primary role. The specific causal relationships involved, however, appear to pertain less to factors of increased productivity on
the part of individual blademakers than to those of skill, as suggested by comparisons between core/blade technology used in areas close
to obsidian sources and those used at sites further removed from the sources.
