This study examines the organization of large-scale chert biface production in the Maya Lowlands, focusing on Took’ Witz, an architectural group of El Palmar in Campeche, Mexico. Excavations and debitage analysis at three plazuelas and a major debitage deposit revealed a complex lithic industry. The results identified segmented production activities in households, from sourcing materials and early-stage reduction to late-stage biface production. The production scale far exceeded household consumption, probably supporting intensive agriculture in the region. The results provide insight into the variable settings and organization of the biface industry throughout the Maya Lowlands.

The area of Ounjougou consists of a series of gullies cut through Upper Pleistocene and Holocene formations on the Dogon Plateau in the Sahel at the south edge of the Sahara Desert. Here the authors have chronicled a stratified sequence of human occupation from the tenth to the second millennium BC, recording natural and anthropogenic strata containing artefacts and micro- and macro- palaeoecological remains, mostly in an excellent state of preservation. They present a first synthesis of the archaeological and environmental sequence for the Holocene period, define five main occupation phases for Ounjougou, and attempt to place them within the context of West African prehistory.