Aztalan Stone Artifacts
To the people of Aztalan, stone was an important material. Their culture, in terms of its place and its time, was an impressive one, and many of its successes, and its limitations as well, are closely connected with the measure of effectiveness with which they could meet their environment with tools made from stone. With a developed culture which required many activities involving cutting, chopping, drilling, scraping, pounding and grinding, they depended heavily on tools made from stone to perform these activities, and, using a variety of techniques from percussion flaking to polishing, they made these tools in forms characteristic of many of the cultures within the broad Mississipi patern.
Although their economy was probably based on farming it was still a mixed one, and hunting, fishing and gathering were important. Large stones were used to grind corn and probably other seeds as well, while arrows tipped with triangular points and spears and knives with lanceolate shaped blades shaped blades were used to bring down game, whose skins were prepared with stone scrapers. The apparent tendency to regard other human beings as potential food must have deepy involved the Aztalan people in activities of war. Here these weapons could be used in defense behind stockades of logs cut by stone celts and sunk in holes and trenches dug by stone bladed shovels, the same tools which could have been used in constructing their houses. Dirt to build the temple mounds which dominate the site was probably dug with stone shovels, which may also have been used to excavate the larger storage pits found in the platform of the southwest pyramid.
In addition to being used for these practical activities, stone was slo made into ornamental pendants and earspools, and when rich in ferrous oxides it was probably used to provide body paints. Apparently games involving stone objects may also have been played.