Award Date

5-15-2026

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Anthropology

First Committee Member

Barbara Roth

Second Committee Member

Lisa Johnson

Third Committee Member

Ivan Sandoval-Cervantes

Fourth Committee Member

Miriam Melton-Villanueva

Number of Pages

416

Abstract

Ground stone tools (manos and metates used to grind food) are among the most recovered yet least studied artifacts in Classic Period Maya archaeology. Their consistent association with women's domestic labor has contributed to their analytical neglect, producing a gap in what is known about daily food production, household organization, and the lives of the people most responsible for both. This thesis addresses that gap through a technical analysis of 211 ground stone artifacts recovered from the Group IV neighborhood at Palenque, Chiapas, Mexico, by the Proyecto Regional de Palenque (PREP) between 2016 and 2025. It is the first systematic study of ground stone from Palenque's Group IV Neighborhood.

The analysis draws on three theoretical frameworks: feminist archaeology, to center women's labor as a primary subject of inquiry; household archaeology, to interpret variation between household types as evidence of genuine social diversity; and object itinerary theory, to trace how tools accumulated meaning through use, movement, and deposition. Methods include morphological classification, use-wear analysis, fragmentation and breakage documentation, wear management assessment, and statistical testing.

Results show that the mano-metate toolkit was present across every household type in the neighborhood, while scale, intensity, and social purpose varied considerably. Group IV produced the highest artifact concentration and mano maintenance rates, consistent with feasting-scale food production at an elite residential compound. J033B documents sustained domestic provisioning. J37, a household engaged in multicrafting, also included domestic food production activities. Wear evidence indicates skilled, high-intensity labor: 96.9% of artifacts have grinding wear, 85.5% are fragmented, and systematic multi-surface use reflects deliberate wear management under material constraint. Three deposition patterns—ritual placement of functional tools, midden discard, and architectural incorporation—demonstrate that grinding tools moved through social as well as physical contexts over the course of their use lives.

This study demonstrates that women's food processing labor at Palenque was not confined to the domestic sphere, it was embedded in the feasting, political, and ritual life of a Classic Period Maya neighborhood. It also shows that the material traces of that labor is recoverable when the analysts point of view is shifted to focus on individuals not typically studied.

Keywords

Ground stone; Household Archaeology; Maya; Object Itinerary; Palenque

Disciplines

Anthropology | Archaeological Anthropology | Social and Behavioral Sciences

File Format

PDF

File Size

10300 KB

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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