Mesoamerican Prismatic Blade Production
from Obsidian

Video by Dick Baugh
Information compiled by Dino Labiste

 

 

"In archaeology, a prismatic blade is a long, narrow, specialized lithic flake with parallel margins. Prismatic blades are removed from polyhedral blade cores through pressure reduction. . . . . Obsidian prismatic blade production was ubiquitous in Mesoamerica, and these tools can be found at a large majority of Mesoamerican archaeological sites from the Preclassic period on until the arrival of the Spanish in the early 16th century."
Excerpt from Wikipedia.org webpage: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prismatic_blade


Photos by Dino Labiste ©

Prismatic Blade and Obsidian Core

 

View Dick Baugh's YouTube video of Greg Nunn's demonstration on one of the techniques of Mesoamerican prismatic blade production.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ej3tXEBXngE

 

View photos of other Mesoamerican prismatic blade production from "The Conference on Ancient Mesoamerican Obsidian Prismatic Blade Production" at Pennsylvania State University on May 22-28, 2000.

 

E-mail your comments to "Richard A. Baugh" at richardbaugh@att.net

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