Abstract :
Obsidian prismatic blades were widely traded across Mesoamerica during the Early and Middle Formative periods. However, it was
not until the Late Formative period (400 b.c.—a.d. 100) that prismatic blade cores began to be exchanged extensively. Although it
is generally accepted that the trading of blades preceded the trading of cores by almost 1,000 years, little is know about the structure of
blade trading during the Early and Middle Formative periods. We describe three distributional models for the trade of obsidian
prismatic blades: whole-blade trade, processed-blade trade, and local-blade production. These models were evaluated using obsidian
consumption data from Oaxaca, the Basin of Mexico, and Tlaxcala. The results indicate that Formative period blade trade involved
different forms over time and space.
