1

Housework and Domestic Craft Production:An Introduction

Kenneth HirthPenn State University

Households are, without question, the most important so-cial units in human society. They are interactive social

units whose primary concern is the day-to-day well beingof their kith and kin. Households reproduce themselves andprovide their members with the economic, psychological,and social resources necessary to live their lives. Althoughhouseholds vary enormously in size and organization, theyare the fundamental social settings in which families are de-fined and cultural values are transmitted through a range ofdomestic activities and rituals. Despite their many functions,it is the range and productivity of their economic activitiesthat determine the success, survival and well being of theirmembers. Households are the primary production and con-sumption units in society and provide the vehicle throughwhich resources are pooled, stored, and distributed to theirmembers. Survival and reproduction is their business andthe work they do determines their success.

This volume is about prehispanic households and thediversity of work that their members engaged in both forthemselves and the household as a whole. It focuses onone of archaeology’s most visible dimensions of house-work, how craft production was incorporated into the workregimes of ancient Mesoamerican households. Our interestin this subject stems from the strong disjuncture that ex-ists between ethnographic and archaeological research onhouseholds. While archaeologists have a long-standing in-terest in the household and household archaeology (Ash-more 1981; Blanton 1994; Lohse and Valdez 2004; Sheets1992; Tourtellot 1988; Webster and Gonlin 1988; Wilk andAshmore 1988), households are often treated as stable andunchanging domestic entities because of the way we are

forced to study them methodologically. Nothing, of course,could be further from the truth.

Recent ethnographic research has demonstrated thathouseholds are highly dynamic and plastic social units thatcan change their composition and work regimes quickly(Wilk 1984; Wilk and Netting 1984). Robert Netting (1989,1993) has shown that households are flexible, motivated, andinnovative social units that can intensify production on theirown initiative when economic conditions permit or requirethem to do so. While archaeologists recognize that house-holds were important social institutions, they usually are notseen as a source of innovation or long term social change(but see Lohse and Valdez 2004). Archaeologists often turnto models of political economy to explain economic inno-vation and change (Brumfiel and Earle 1987; D’Altroy andEarle 1985; Earle 1997; Freidel et al. 2002; Rathje 1972,2002). Archaeology as a discipline has been slow to recog-nize the dynamic nature of household production for tworeasons. The first is the long recognized inability to studyhouseholds in short-term temporal segments that can becorrelated with meaningful episodes within the domesticlife cycle (Haviland 1988; Hirth 1993). Without the abil-ity to see the household in “short time” (Smith 1992) itis hard to evaluate how households respond to new condi-tions as flexible adaptive units. The second is the absenceof a dynamic theoretical model of domestic economy andhousehold behavior that archaeologists can use to interpretmaterial remains. It is this second issue that this volumeseeks to address.

The dimension of domestic economy examined here isthe role of craft production in household work strategies.

ARCHEOLOGICAL PAPERS OF THE AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION, Vol. 19, Issue 1, pp. 1–12, ISSN 1551-823X,online ISSN 1551-8248. C© 2009 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1111/j.1551-8248.2009.01009.x.

2 Kenneth Hirth

Domestic production in its simplest form is the productionof goods for self consumption. This type of ad hoc do-mestic production is not the focus of this volume. Instead,we are interested in the production of craft goods intendedfor exchange and consumption outside of the householdswhere they were produced. This form of activity is oftenreferred to as specialized craft production (Clark 1995; Fladand Hruby 2007; Rice 1981; Wailes 1996). It is special-ized in the sense that craft goods were produced for a spe-cific purpose beyond the household ranging from exchangeand gift giving, to meeting broader social, political or ritualneeds. While craft production can occur in a range of do-mestic, public, and special purpose contexts it is only theformer that supplies information about the household econ-omy. In general, archaeologists identify specialized craftproduction in domestic contexts when production residuesfrom the goods produced exceed what would be expected forauto-consumption and internal use (Clark 1995:279; Clarkand Parry 1990:297; Costin 1991, 2001; Inomata 2001:322;Schortman and Urban 2004). This micro-view is a useful andpractical way of identifying the production of craft goods indomestic settings that are intended for export.

It is important to consider the broader behavioral di-mensions of domestic craft production. What does craftproduction reflect about the internal economic strategiesof households and the wider patterns of household inter-dependence? A working assumption of this volume is thatmuch of the specialized domestic craft production found inMesoamerica provided important economic contributions tohousehold subsistence budgets. While craft production mayalso have provided social status and meaning for individualcraftsmen (e.g. Helms 1993), that is not the dimension ofcraft production explored here. The raison d’etre of this vol-ume is to bring this economic dimension into sharper focusand explore how craft production for exchange contributedto, and was incorporated into, normal household subsistenceactivities.

The production of craft goods for exchange was animportant and specialized activity within the householdswhere it was practiced. Nevertheless, few of the authors inthis volume use the terms specialized or specialization todescribe it. The reasons for this are varied, but in the ecolog-ical and evolutionary literature specialization is often usedto describe the focused exploitation of a narrow suite ofresources and/or the intensification of economic activities.While domestic craft production certainly reflects the in-tensification of work it does not represent a narrowing ofeconomic activities from the perspective of individual pro-ducers. In Mesoamerica, craft production was often addedto domestic work regimes without changing its other sub-sistence activities. As a result its appearance often reflects

an intensification, amplification and diversification of do-mestic work schedules rather than a narrowing of economicactivities within the household.

In a recent publication on craft specialization Flad andHruby (2002) distinguish between what they call the pro-ducer and product views of specialization and this dichotomyis especially appropriate here. If domestic crafting for useoutside the household is examined from the producer view,then its place as a specialized activity remains murky sinceit is often only one of several economic activities used tosupport the household. However, if it is viewed from theproduct perspective then its role as a specialized activityis clear. The product perspective is concerned with wheregoods are produced and how they circulated throughout soci-ety. The presence of a few households producing and supply-ing craft goods for the society as a whole certainly qualifiesas a specialized activity from the perspective of commoditycirculation. It reflects a level of economic interdependencebetween households that Durkheim (1933) characterized asorganic solidarity.

Conceptual issues aside, what is examined here is theintensification of domestic crafting for purposes of exchangeand its effect on the economic wellbeing of the individualsand households that practiced it. It is a specialized activityfor the products produced, but in most cases was only one ofa suite of economic activities contributing to the household’soverall economic wellbeing.

The Volume Goals

The contributions in this volume all focus onMesoamerica (Figure 1). That is a practical matter because itis an area with excellent information on domestic craft pro-duction. Domestic craft production appears in some areas ofMesoamerica coincident with sedentary agricultural com-munities (Boksenbaum et al. 1987; Clark 1987; Balkanskyet al. this volume) and continues as the main mode of produc-tion through the development of ranked and state level soci-ety. While the analysis of craft production employs examplesfrom Mesoamerica, the discussion of the domestic economyis applicable to most ancient sedentary societies in both theNew and Old Worlds. Small scale domestic craft produc-tion for exchange is one of the hallmarks the Mesoameri-can economy (Feinman 1999). This is because a range ofsurplus production including craft goods was bought andsold in marketplaces across many areas of Mesoamerica.This gave households a ready outlet to sell small quantitiesof craft goods and other resources to consumers at the re-gional level. Even though households are fully capable ofdistributing craft goods through trade networks outside the

Introduction 3

Figure 1. Regions in Mesoamerica discussed in this volume. 1) Tarascan region, 2) Basin ofMexico, 3) Tlaxcala, 4) Morelos, 5) Valley of Puebla, 6) Mixteca Alta, 7) Valley of Oaxaca,8) Gulf Coast Region, 9) Motagua Valley, 10) Copan region

marketplace (Longacre and Stark 1992; Stark 1992), themarketplace concentrated demand and made it easier forproducers to reach potential buyers. While a number ofresearchers have associated the development of craft pro-duction with the appearance of cities and urban markets(Braudel 1986; Childe 1950; Pirenne 1974), craft produc-tion in Mesoamerica occurred in both urban and rural areas(Brumfiel 1986, 1987; Hicks 1982). Certainly the market-place was an important factor in stimulating the expansionof craft production at the regional level, but it does not byitself explain why the locus of production remained in thehousehold.

The goal of this volume is to generate a better under-standing of the prehistoric domestic economy and how craftproduction functioned within it. The central focus of thevolume revolves around three primary questions or themes.First, how did crafting fit within the production goals andobjectives of prehispanic households and their members?Second, was the production of wealth goods controlled byelites in Mesoamerican societies or were these goods alsoproduced and distributed by non-elite households throughindependent commercial networks? Finally, are there betterways to conceptualize and model domestic craft productionthan the traditional approaches currently in use in archaeol-ogy? The contributors of this volume address these questionsin different ways as they explore the role of craft productionin the prehispanic domestic economy.

The first question is concerned with developing a con-ceptual model of domestic economy that archaeologists can

use to study households using archaeological techniques.This is a fundamental question not just for Mesoamerica, buteverywhere where domestic craft production is found in thepre-industrial world. The volume uses a case study approachto examine the range and scale of domestic craft activity andwhat it tells us about levels of specialization in Mesoamerica.As mentioned above, the marketplace provided opportuni-ties for households to engage in a diverse array of productionactivities. But domestic craft production developed long be-fore the earliest suspected appearance of marketplaces inMesoamerica (Blanton 1983; Feinman et al. 1984). Whilemarkets certainly increased the opportunity for householdsto produce and sell craft goods, similar forms of craft diver-sification also existed in early non-market economies.

The second issue examined here is how domestic craftspecialists were integrated into Mesoamerica’s broader po-litical economy. Were non-elite artisans involved in funda-mental ways or was the political economy a separate sectorof the economy as it apparently was in the Andean region(D’Altroy and Earle 1985)? A considerable amount has beenwritten about wealth goods in Mesoamerica and how im-portant they were for elite to control (Aoyama 1999; Ball1993; Brumfiel and Earle 1987; Demarest 1992; Fash 1991;Inomata 2001; LeCount 1999; Masson and Freidel 2002;Rathje 1972; Reents-Budet 1998). Despite years of researchand focused excavations on elite structures in many areasof Mesoamerica, the actual empirical evidence for elite in-volvement in wealth good production remains meager. Theavailable evidence is beginning to suggest that a significant

4 Kenneth Hirth

percentage of wealth goods were produced in non-elite do-mestic contexts outside of the direct control of Mesoameri-can elites. If this is true then the important question becomeshow finished goods were concentrated in elite hands throughmobilization, tribute, or commercial activities. Although amore comprehensive treatment is not possible here, sev-eral of the volume contributions suggest that independent,non-elite artisans were involved in the production of wealthgoods both near the source of raw material (Rochette, chap-ter 13) and far away (Hirth et al., chapter 11). Consideringhow widespread this practice was and what it may implyabout the organization of prehispanic political economy isa separate topic that needs more lengthy treatment than canbe attempted here.

The third and final objective of this volume is to developa better conceptual understanding of domestic economy andwhere craft production fits within it. Craft production wouldnot be practiced if it did not contribute to the economicgoals and/or the social obligations of the household. Theprimary objective of households is to reproduce themselvesand they employ a variety of subsistence strategies in doingso. Minimizing risk and maintaining access to both sub-sistence and social resources is fundamental to householdsurvival. Diversification of production strategies is one waythis is accomplished (Halstead and O’Shea 1989; Messer1989; Sahn 1989) and craft production provides a means tothis end.

Archaeologists also need better concepts for describ-ing and examining the structure of craft production in pre-industrial households. The current concepts of full- andpart-time craft production are not useful in this regard andactually hinder, rather than help, our understanding of do-mestic craft production (Schortman and Urban 2004). Thereason is that full- and part-time craft production are definedby the amount of time that artisans spend on their work. Thissays very little about the actual importance of craft produc-tion within the households that practice it. Using the samerationale it could be argued that a dedicated Iowa farmerwith a 500 acre farm is only a part-time agricultural spe-cialist because farming only takes place during a portionof the year. This of course, is not particularly helpful if wewant to understand the structure of Iowa farming and thesame is true of domestic craft production. Two alternativeconcepts, intermittent crafting (Hirth 2006) and multicraft-ing (Hirth 2006; Shimada 2007), are developed to describethe range and scale of craft production in domestic contexts.These concepts are evaluated by the contributions in thisvolume in terms of their utility in describing the structureand operation of different domestic craft industries.

The test of any approach is how well it explains theempirical data to which it is applied. The examination of

different types of domestic crafting within Mesoamericaprovides a comparative framework for evaluating how theorganization of production differed from activity to activity.Five utilitarian crafts (salt manufacture, bitumen processing,obsidian blade manufacture, ceramic production, and glueprocessing) are examined from different regions and dif-ferent time periods alongside the production of four typesof wealth goods (jade artifact manufacture, feather work-ing, metallurgy, and generalized lapidary work). Althoughit is convenient to draw a distinction between utilitarian andwealth goods this is a false dichotomy because a number ofthese products (i.e. glue, pottery, bitumen, obsidian tools)can be considered to be either utilitarian or wealth goodsdepending on their use and/or the context where they occur.While glue and bitumen were simple mastics they also wereused in the manufacture of high value feather or mosaic de-vices. No other volume that I know of attempts a regionalcomparison of different crafts like that attempted here. Thereason is not a lack of interest by scholars in comparativeresearch, but rather the difficulty of compiling informationon multiple forms of craft production in the same area.

The archaeological data indicate that most types of craftproduction were carried out at the household level by inde-pendent, non-elite craft specialists who worked to supporttheir families and to meet their respective social obligations.Empirical evidence is found for intermittent crafting andmulticrafting for both utilitarian and wealth goods at thehousehold level. The evidence for direct elite involvementin, or control over, the production of wealth goods remainslimited. Elites certainly were involved in the production ofwealth goods for their own use and employed both attachedspecialists (Widmer, this volume) and consigned production(Hirth et al., this volume) to obtain these goods. What isimportant is that elites do not seem to have exercised in-tentional, restrictive control over the production of wealthgoods at the level of non-elite households. Instead, whatappears to have existed was a system of relatively openaccess to resources (obsidian, jade, metal, etc) at the locallevel where they were transformed into different products bycraftspersons at all levels of the social hierarchy (Rochette,this volume). The advantage of wealth good production bynon-elites is that it creates large numbers of artisans at thedomestic level with the knowledge and technology neces-sary to work valued resources. The issue for elites thenbecomes how to exploit this expertise and to accumulatevalued goods through corvee and tribute production levies.This is a different view of wealth good production than hasbeen proposed by scholars who favor a strong, top-downmodel of elite control over Mesoamerican economy (Chaseand Chase 1996; Foias 2002; Manzanilla 1993; LeCount1999; Santley 1983).

Introduction 5

The Case Study Approach

The case study approach and the empirical informationthat it supplies provides the data to model social interactionand construct theories of cultural development. If concep-tual and theoretical issues are not supported by empiricalresearch then it is time to rethink them. This is the approachtaken here. Contributors were selected who could evaluatethe organization of domestic craft production from as manydifferent perspectives as possible. The examination of dif-ferent crafts (ceramic, lapidary, flaked stone tool production,etc) was based on the desire to avoid constructing a modelof domestic craft production based on idiosyncratic featuresof only one craft industry. In this regard the distribution ofceramic goods and grinding stones are more constrained byweight and distance factors than are obsidian, textiles orsalt.

Instead the case studies examine craft production forboth utilitarian items and wealth goods. Even here, how-ever, the examples were chosen selectively to interject asmuch diversity into the discussion as possible. The utili-tarian crafts discussed include bitumen processing (Wendt),salt production (De Leon), ceramic manufacture (Balkanskyet al., Castanzo and Vonarx, Pool), obsidian blade produc-tion (Darras, Hirth), and the fabrication of adhesives (Berdanet al.). As might be expected most of these crafts exploitedlocal resources although one case is included where pro-curement networks were used to obtain raw material fromoutside the region (Hirth, chapter 6). The wealth crafts in-clude jade carving (Hirth et al., Rochette), feather workingas it relates to adhesive use (Berdan et al.), metallurgy (Mal-donado), and shell working within the context of generalizedlapidary and multicrafting (Widmer). These raw materialsmoved over greater distances from source to craftsmen thanwhat is found for utilitarian crafts. The cases presented hererun the gamut from the use of local materials (Rochette) toresources moving over both intermediate (Widmere, Mal-donado) and long distances (Hirth et al.). Together thesecraft activities encompass a range of different mining tech-niques (obsidian, copper, clay), resource collection tasks(bitumen, shell, jade, orchids), and processing activities ofboth organic and inorganic substances.

It would have been nice to have widened the discus-sion by including additional craft activities like textile work-ing (Halperin 2008; Hendon 2006), ground stone manufac-ture (Biskowski 2000), pulque making (Parsons and Parsons1990; Taube 1996) or beekeeping (Dixon 1988). Unfortu-nately limitations of space did not permit additional casesbut it is hoped that future studies will explore these and otherexamples. Nevertheless, the case studies selected illustratethe creative use of natural resources and technologies by

Mesoamerican households to fabricate the items used byprehispanic populations. The widespread knowledge, skill,and ingenuity of prehispanic craftspersons is truly amazingespecially when it is viewed in this collective way.

Technological studies indicate that craft production wasdynamic and adapted to new situations. Technological ad-justments were implemented as a response to changing re-source levels or to make production processes faster andmore efficient. Changes in the scheduling of production ac-tivities were a response to internal conditions within thehousehold and external forces including changes in the levelof demand, the organization of distribution networks, andthe political and social conditions that affect economic in-teraction. While contributors to this volume approach thisquestion from the perspective of their individual data, theyall recognize the temporal and organizational boundaries inwhich they were framed. Between the Formative and Post-classic periods Mesoamerican societies were transformedfrom independent farming villages into ranked and statelevel societies. Changes in the demands of developing polit-ical and economic systems certainly affected the scale andorganization of domestic craft production over time.

Following the same desire for breadth of coverage, pa-pers in this volume are distributed widely over both spaceand time. This also was intentional since we did not wantto discover patterns of household crafting that were onlyunique to the highlands or lowlands and not representativeof Mesoamerica as a whole. Areal coverage includes contri-butions from Central Mexico (Berdan et al., Castanzo, DeLeon, Hirth, Hirth et al.), West Mexico (Darras, Maldon-ado), the Gulf Coast (Pool, Wendt), the southeastern Mayaregion (Rochette, Widmer), the Mixteca Alta, and the Valleyof Oaxaca (Balkansky et al.). The temporal span covered inthese discussions is likewise broad, ranging from 1200 BCto AD 1521 and covering a range of both simple and com-plex societies. Although it would have been nice to haveexamples from Classic period settlements in the highlandsto complement those from the southeastern Maya region(Rochette, Widmer), there was not enough space to includethem.

One of the strengths of the volume is that most of thecase studies with the exception of Xochicalco (Hirth) andCopan (Widmer) are examples of domestic crafting carriedout in rural communities. This is a strength of the volumebecause most of the population in pre-Hispanic Mesoamer-ica lived in rural rather than urban settings. Archaeologistsoften focus explorations on urban settings because thesesettlements contain information about important politicaland religious institutions. Urban settlements, however, fre-quently are not typical of the society as a whole. Instead theycreate a range of new economic opportunities for households

6 Kenneth Hirth

to adapt to. Urban populations, for example, create con-centrated demand for goods and services that provide anopportunity for new crafting and service activities (Jacobs1969) that may not be typical of the society as a whole.The presence of domestic craft production in rural sitesindicates that it was a fundamental feature of Mesoameri-can household economy that could be intensified in urbansettings. One of the primary objectives of this volume is tomore effectively model how craft production was carried outwithin domestic settings, and in so doing, expand our un-derstanding of the overall household economy. While eachof the papers differ in content, they all address in some waywhether intermittent crafting and multicrafting provide use-ful frameworks for describing and modeling the organizationof domestic craft production. This hopefully will advancethe discussion of how domestic economies were organizedin the pre-industrial societies that archaeologists commonlystudy.

The Volume Contents

The volume is organized into four sections based onthe thematic focus of the individual contributions. The firstsection consists of this introduction and a single paper byHirth (chapter 2) that examines the nature of the domesticeconomy and how researchers have addressed these issuesin archaeological research. The second and third sectionsgroup the contributions into a discussion of utilitarian andwealth good production. The fourth section represents usefulcritical commentary on the volume’s goals and accomplish-ments by Elizabeth Brumfiel and Deborah Nichols.

The main objective of Chapter two is to expand ourtheoretical and conceptual understanding of the householdeconomy and the place of domestic craft production withinit. It does four related things. It begins by discussing theapproaches that archaeologists have used to investigate do-mestic craft production. The discussion then examines thetraditional views of the household and why these fail to helparchaeologists in their analysis of domestic crafting. Thisis followed by the presentation of a more dynamic view ofdomestic economy and how craft production fits within adiversified household subsistence strategy. The chapter con-cludes by defining the concepts of intermittent crafting andmulticrafting and discusses why they are useful to the dis-cussion of craft activity. These concepts are then evaluatedby other authors in the volume as they examine the structureof different domestic craft activities.

The second section of the volume contains seven papersthat examine the production of utilitarian goods within do-mestic contexts. The first paper is by Carl Wendt (chapter 3)

who discusses the evidence for domestic bitumen processingduring the Early Formative period in the Gulf Coast regionnear the Olmec site of San Lorenzo (Figure 1). Bitumen is anatural petroleum product that was collected from seepagesin the Gulf Coast and processed into small cakes suitable foruse or trade. Bitumen production is difficult to classify in aconventional sense because it has both utilitarian and ritualusages; it can be used as a sealant, mastic, or even as an aro-matic incense (Ortız Ceballos and del Carmen Rodrıguez1994). Bitumen was used and traded throughout Mesoamer-ica and the evidence from Wendt’s research indicates thatit was collected and processed on a regular basis by non-elite households who traveled the waterways where naturalseepages occur.

The next paper by Jason De Leon (chapter 4) reexam-ines salt production in the Basin of Mexico at the time of theSpanish Conquest (Figure 1). The technique used to manu-facture salt involved leaching saline soils along the marginsof Lake Texcoco and processing the resulting brine into salt.The author questions whether salt production was a full-time craft activity and feels it was probably practiced on anintermittent basis by households that also engaged in theintensive collection of wild resources from the lake. Thisproduction used a low quality ceramic type called TexcocoFabric Marked as evaporator pans and shipping containersfor processing and transporting salt during the Postclassicperiod. Texcoco Fabric Marked was a consumable withinthe context of salt production and De Leon suggests it wasproduced by the same craft individuals who manufacturedsalt. Since salt production was probably only practiced dur-ing the dry season it is an interesting example of intermittentmulticrafting where ceramic production is a contingent craftfor the salt manufacture.

Research by Andrew Balkansky and Michelle Crossierin chapter 5 examines the evidence for multicrafting in do-mestic contexts at the Tayata site in the Mixteca Alta around1000 BC. The evidence indicates that shell, pottery, andflaked stone tools were occasionally manufactured in smallamounts in the same residence. While the scale of produc-tion remains to be resolved this is an interesting case becauseit demonstrates that multicrafting is an old rather than a re-cent pattern in Mesoamerica. They broaden this discussionby examining other examples of intermittent crafting andmulticrafting in the Valley of Oaxaca. The results suggestthat a wide range of both utilitarian and wealth goods wereproduced in this way throughout both the Mixteca Alta andthe Valley of Oaxaca (Figure 1).

Veronique Darras (chapter 6) examines the social con-ditions for the adoption and spread of obsidian blade tech-nology into the Tarascan region of West Mexico between1200–1450 AD (Figure 1). Blade technology was adopted

Introduction 7

relatively late in West Mexico and is important for ourdiscussions here because it was introduced into the regionthrough rural crafting households without elite sponsorshipor supervision. The two rural communities of El Duraznoand Las Iglesias are examined, both of which have clear ev-idence for agricultural terracing associated with householdsengaged in obsidian craft production. This provides a con-vincing case that craft production was part of a diversifiedhousehold subsistence strategy that included normal maizeagriculture with the production of obsidian blades. Craftproduction in this context was intermittent crafting. House-holds were located relatively close to obsidian deposits andproduced blades for export to large urban sites elsewhere inthe region. The fact that they introduced a new technologyinto the region underscores the creativity and resourceful-ness of independent artisans and what they could accomplishwithout elite assistance.

Excavation of four domestic craft production work-shops at the site of Xochicalco, Mexico is discussed byKenneth Hirth in chapter 7. Xochicalco was an urban cen-ter with a population of 10–15,000 people that flourishedduring the Epiclassic period in western Morelos from 650–900 AD (Figure 1). Four domestic workshops were ex-plored where obsidian prismatic blades were produced fordistribution within the city and throughout its surround-ing region. Excellent conditions of preservation and theidentification of in situ production deposits permitted adetailed analysis of craft activity inside these households.Evidence for multicrafting was found with indications that5–7 economic activities were practiced in all four house-holds. These households combined obsidian blade pro-duction (all households) with agriculture (all households),obsidian lapidary work (all workshops), chert biface produc-tion (1 workshop), itinerant crafting (1 workshop) stuccomanufacture (1 workshop), and the importation, finishingand commercial resale of performed obsidian bifaces (allworkshops). This evidence underscores the importance ofdiversification as a primary feature of the normal domesticeconomy.

The contribution by Christopher Pool in chapter 8 shiftsthe discussion to ceramic craft production at the sites of Mat-acapan, Bezuapan, and Tres Zapotes in the Gulf Coast region(Figure 1). Pool’s research makes several important obser-vations. First, he demonstrates that most ceramic productionoccurred as intermittent production in non-elite householdsduring the agricultural dry season. Ceramic production wasa seasonal activity that helped diversify the subsistence ac-tivities of normal households. Second, evidence for multi-crafting is also found that the author associates with periodsof increased agricultural risk. Finally, indications of ceramicproduction are presented for an elite context at Tres Zapotes

that seems oriented toward auto-consumption rather than theproduction of high status ceramic goods.

Research by Ronald Castanzo in chapter 9 shifts atten-tion from the site to the regional level. The author examinesan exceptional situation where 89 ceramic and lime kilnswere identified by survey and excavation in a three sq kmarea in the eastern Valley of Puebla (Figure 1). Ceramicand radiocarbon analyses date most of these features to theEarly-Late Formative periods between 1000–150 BC. Thesize of these kilns reflect small scale production by individ-ual households oriented to meet both local consumer andtribute demands. Although many kilns are concentrated in asmall area, this appears to be the result of regional special-ization and use over a long term period of time rather than afunction of high output production. None of these kilns areat a scale to suggest anything other than intermittent ceramicproduction at the household level.

The third section this volume contains five papers thatexamine the production of wealth goods in Mesoamerica.The first of these is a contribution by Frances Berdan,Edward Stark and Jeffrey Sahagun that examines the produc-tion and sale of adhesives in the Basin of Mexico (Figure 1)at the time of the Spanish Conquest. Adhesives were man-ufactured from wild orchids collected from upland forestregions of the Basin of Mexico. They probably were man-ufactured on an intermittent basis by individuals in Aztechouseholds who either sold them to consumers or to venderswho worked in the marketplace. While orchid glues are inone sense a utilitarian commodity, they were also used byAztec feather workers to make an array of important wealthgoods that the authors discuss using data drawn from ethno-historic documentation, museum research, and archaeologi-cal experimentation. These adhesives connect rural agrarianhouseholds, who foraged on an intermittent basis in forestenvironments, with urban artisans who produced the elabo-rate feather devices so important in Aztec ritual and politicallife. It is an example of how a simple product like orchidglue can link domestic artisans involved in very differentforms of craft production.

This is followed by a paper by Kenneth Hirth, MariCarmen Serra, Carlos Lascanco, and Jason De Leon (chapter11) that examines the nature of lapidary production at Na-tivitas, Tlaxcala during the Late Formative period (500–100BC) (Figure 1). Excavations at Terrace 5 identified a smallrural household where jade beads were produced from rawmaterial originating from sources along the Rio Motaguamore than 1100 km away. Nativitas was a dispersed ruralsettlement, and although it is located only three km east ofthe large center of Cerro Xochitecatl, there is no indica-tion that production in this household was directly or indi-rectly linked to Xochitecatl’s influential elites. The available

8 Kenneth Hirth

evidence suggests that the household combined small scaleintermittent crafting with normal agriculture to create a di-versified subsistence base. The use of jade from such a dis-tance source is an intriguing and provocative anomaly andsuggests that these independent craftspersons may have re-ceived some of their raw material as consigned productionfrom Xochitecatl elite.

The contribution by Randolph Widmer in chapter 12is one of the best examples of attached craft productionever excavated in Mesoamerica. This research discusses theevidence for craft production recovered from elite struc-ture 9N-8 at Copan, Honduras (Figure 1). Excavations hereuncovered evidence for a multicrafting workshop in PatioH that dated to the end of the Late Classic period. Thiscraft activity involved the production of socially and rituallycharged wealth objects. It included shell working, lapidarywork in jade and other semi-precious materials, obsidiantool production, textile manufacture, and possible featherworking. Most of this activity appears to have been aimed atthe production of wealth items used by elite members insidethe household. While providing a good example of attachedproduction, it challenges our notion that specialized domes-tic craft production is best measured by concentrations ofproduction debris that exceed auto-consumption and inter-nal use (Clark and Parry 1990:297). Although this researchwas conducted over two decades ago, it is the first lengthypresentation of the information in English.

The subsequent discussion by Eric Rochette in chapter13 examines the manufacture of jade beads in the middleMotagua Valley in east-central Guatemala (Figure 1). TheMotagua valley was the primary source area for jade andjadeite found in Mesoamerica. Survey and excavation byRochette have identified two important features about do-mestic craft production in this region. First, evidence forthe manufacture of jade objects can be found in every sitewithin the region. Second, there is no evidence that jadewas only worked in elite contexts; jade objects were regu-larly produced in all domestic contexts. While we know thatjade was a highly valued material throughout Mesoamer-ica, it was not a controlled substance in the Motagua valley.Rather, intermittent production appears to have been thenorm in this region with most, if not all households en-gaging in some level of lapidary production. Stratigraphictesting at the site of Guayatan also identified one instanceof multicrafting where both obsidian blades and jade beadswere manufactured in the same context. What this workconvincingly demonstrates is that even jade, Mesoamer-ica’s most precious wealth good, was not controlled atthe source. Instead it was worked in all domestic settingsthroughout the region resulting in high levels of wealth goodproduction.

The last case study in this volume is presented by BlancaMaldonado in chapter 14 who examines the nature of Taras-can metallurgy. The Tarascans were the foremost metal-lurgists in ancient Mesoamerica and produced an array ofwealth goods in copper-bronze alloys. Maldonado exploresthe ethnohistoric and archaeological evidence from her re-search on copper-bronze metallurgy in the Tarascan region(Figure 1). This evidence suggests that most copper wasmobilized either through the tribute system or some form ofdirect elite exploitation. Mining, however, appears to havebeen an intermittent activity for households who cultivatedduring the rainy season and engaged in mining during thedry season.

The fourth and final section of this volume containscritical commentary and conclusions provided by ElizabethBrumfiel and Deborah Nichols. This discussion examinesthe contributions this volume makes to the study of domes-tic craft production both in Mesoamerica and other areasof the ancient world. The household was the locale wheremost specialized craft production took place in Mesoamer-ica. The next chapter examines how the domestic economywas organized and the role that craft production could playwithin it.

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