Over five hundred years ago, in the Guatemalan highlands of the Midwest, the Maya people traded goods with far less intervention from their rulers than previously believed by many archaeologists. According to a recent study published in the journalLatin American Antiquity, the K'iche' ruling elit
Obsidian collections from the site of Q’umarkaj and the surrounding region. Credit: R. Horowitz
“Scholars have generally assumed that the obsidian trade was managed by Maya rulers, but our research shows that this wasn’t the case at least in this area,” said Rachel Horowitz, lead author of the study and an assistant professor of anthropology at The results showed that the K’iche’ acquired their obsidian from similar sources in the Central K’iche’ region and Q’umarkaj, indicating a high degree of centralized control. The ruling elite also seemed to manage the trade of more valuable forms of nonlocal obsidian, particularly Pachua obsidian from Mexico, based off its abundance in these central sites.
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