Ground stone tools at San Estevan: A distributional and petrographic analysis

Archaeological analysis of ground stone tools sheds light on several aspects of ancient societies including long distance trade, access to goods and raw materials, social stratification, and the organization of production. The following thesis examines the potential for a dataset of ground stone tools from the Maya site of San Estevan, Belize, to address these concerns. I examined the tools to determine their sources and their functions. My research has shown that ancient San Estevan was internally diversified, with different areas of the community pursuing different strategies of acquisition and use of ground stone implements. The social and economic implications of these findings will be discussed during the course of this thesis.