Obsidian blades and everyday cutting tasks at Teotihuacan during c. 100–500 CE

Obsidian blades were common cutting tools at Teotihuacan, in central Mexico. Their everyday importance emerges from residential workshops as well as finished tools: making sharp edges was itself skilled household work.

Place, period and evidence

This entry focuses on Teotihuacan during approximately 100–500 CE. Its principal examples come from archaeological investigations of the Tlajinga district and the Plaza of the Columns Complex. These sources describe Classic-period assemblages; they do not establish an identical pattern of blade production or use for every century within this entry’s date range.

At Tlajinga, excavators identify obsidian blades as the most common cutting tool at Teotihuacan and document specialist makers in residential Compound 17:S3E1. This places cutting tools within the working lives of urban households. See the project’s Household Archaeology account.

Making blades was household work

A blade core was the piece of obsidian from which makers removed blades. At Compound 17, excavators recovered cores and production byproducts alongside extensive evidence of blade manufacture. Differences in workmanship suggest that people with different levels of skill worked there; the project interprets this as evidence of apprenticeship across generations.

The blades were commodities for exchange within the city and beyond. Producing them could therefore help a household obtain goods it did not make itself. The Domestic Economy project account connects this utilitarian craft with household provisioning. Excavations subsequently reported by Hirth and colleagues confirmed large-scale production at Compound 17 rather than relying solely on debris visible at the surface.

What cutting tasks can we identify?

Cutting, slicing and scraping are actions, not complete descriptions of a tool’s job. Identifying the material worked requires additional evidence. The Compound 17 study reports microscopic use-wear interpretations linking some heavily modified blades, termed Amantla blades, with durable materials including wood, shell and bone. This supports a role in craft work without showing that every ordinary blade had the same use.

Preparing food, trimming hide or cutting plant materials are plausible uses for sharp blades, but they should not become a documented daily routine merely because a blade was found near a dwelling. The evidence discussed here does not establish a particular meal, clothing task or plant species for an individual household blade. The Compound 17 study distinguishes manufacturing remains from evidence of tool use.

A blade’s context matters

Research at the Plaza of the Columns Complex suggests that many green obsidian tools arrived already finished, particularly prismatic blades. This provides a useful counterpart to the manufacturing evidence at Tlajinga: finding a blade does not necessarily mean it was made where it was discarded.

The same project also recovered obsidian objects in offerings. Tools selected for deposition cannot automatically stand for routine household use. Its analysis of Offering D4 found little significant wear on the examined obsidian artifacts. Manufacture, use and deposition are separate parts of an object’s history. See the project’s Lithic Analysis account.

Explore the city

For the wider setting of these tools, read Daily life in Teotihuacan during the 5th century CE, or browse Everyday Objects.