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The trail to the LDF Chert Site takes about five minutes to walk the 1/8 km (1/10 mile) down the path. At the base of a small hill, the Maya quarried enormous quantities of raw chert or flint stone nodules and then flaked them into basic household and agricultural tools. The chert flakes you stand on are part of a waste deposit that stretches across an area greater than 50 x 50 meters (1/2 acre) and a depth of more than 2 meters (7 feet). You can imagine the surprise we had in our excavations. |
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The waste flakes are by-products of tool manufacturing, primarily bifacial tool production. These are created when the piece of raw chert is struck to shape the tool. Pieces of the rock literally "flake" off. The biface was the machete of the Maya, used as a basic chopper, fashioned into a hoe, axe, adze, or other utility tool for working around the house. Judging from the large amount of debris, the Maya at El Pilar were manufacturing many tools over a long time period to produce this pile-of-stone! It has been calculated that there are more than 90 billion flakes in this dump site! The concentration of debris at LDF Chert Site demonstrates that the ancient Maya had some concern for the proper disposal of "hazardous wastes." There are no houses near this dump of sharp, angular refuse. Imagine walking here without shoes. Children would certainly be discouraged from approaching this danger zone. |
| This is a chopper made by one of our students to demonstrate how some of the biface tools were used. These are some of the biface tools found at El Pilar. |
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