Economic growth in Mesoamerica: Obsidian consumption in the coastal lowlands

• Mesoamerican coastal obsidian implements represent millennia of consumption.
• Lithic technology transformed from percussion flake and bipolar to preferred prismatic pressure blades.
• Residential access to obsidian improved over time, likely peaking in the Postclassic period.
• Obsidian access is one measure of general welfare for evaluating economic growth.
• Technological improvements and transfers contributed to economic growth.

Economic growth is rarely examined for ancient states and empires despite its prominence as a topic in modern economies. The concept is debated, and many measures of growth are inaccessible for most of the ancient world, such as gross domestic product (GDP). Scholars generally have been pessimistic about ancient economic growth, but expectations derived from dramatic growth in modern economies can lead to overlooking important evidence about economic change in the past. The measure of economic growth that we adopt focuses on the economic well-being of ordinary households. We evaluate one domain of evidence: imported obsidian implement consumption in the coastal lowlands of Mesoamerica. We situate the obsidian study against a backdrop of ideas concerning economic growth in ancient societies because such topics have received only modest attention for Mesoamerica. For the major Mesoamerican ceramic periods, we (1) display the already-known early technological shift in predominant techniques of obsidian implement production—from percussion and bipolar flakes to prismatic pressure blades—that led to more efficient tool production for long-distance trade, (2) note other lithic technological improvements, and (3) evaluate increased obsidian access with a growing market system in the last centuries of the prehispanic record.