State political authority and obsidian craft production at the Moon Pyramid, Teotihuacan, Mexico

This study details the excavation and analysis of obsidian workshop deposits located next to the Moon Pyramid at the ancient city of Teotihuacan, Mexico. The production activities that resulted in these deposits involved the large-scale production of weaponry and martially themed ceremonial items. These activities were administered by state leaders, and served part of the military and ideological underpinnings on which their political authority rested. While it is likely that many other obsidian production contexts at Teotihuacan were not state administered, this study presents activities that were, provides evidence supporting such an interpretation, and reconstructs the rationale and broader social significance of such activities.;The production sequences represented in the Moon Pyramid workshop deposits are investigated through lithic replication exercises that form the basis of the technological analysis of the artifacts. The symbolic significance of the production activities is examined with reference to the depositional contexts of the types of items represented in the deposits---including within the militaristic dedicatory offerings of the three major pyramids at the city---and iconographic analyses of the city's art. A coherent suite of symbolism is outlined associated with the state expansionism realized by Teotihuacanos throughout parts of Mesoamerica during the Classic period (c. AD 1--600). The Moon Pyramid obsidian workshop activities represent the physical articulation of aspects of an expansionary strategy that included production of the actual implements of warfare and associated religious sacrifices, and an ideology that analogized these activities to predator-prey relations in the natural world.;At a broader level, this study suggests that greater insights into the behaviors represented by past material cultures can be obtained by coupling technologically informed analyses with a detailed understanding of the social and ideational dimensions within which ancient craft production activities were realized. Aspects of material culture associated with warfare and rituals of violence appear to have frequently formed part of the strategies of early state governance, serving to publicize political authority in a tangible form. Related production activities were often state administered, and cross-cultural approaches to explaining their variability provide valuable comparative insights into political dynamics of the past.