gems, jade, pyroxene jade, fei cui, Guatemala, Mesoamerica, Nicaragua, Mexico, Honduras, Costa Rica, archaeogemology, Cuba, Dominican Republic

In this paper we review the mineralogical, petrological and geological information relevant to social jade (greenstone) used in Costa Rica during Pre-Columbian times. Around 50% or even more of the Pre-Columbian social jade artifacts in Costa Rica may have been produced using local sources (green lutite and green sandstone, serpentinite, jasper and other types of flint and quartz), but the rest of recovered samples seem to have been manufactured from material imported from external sources (i.e., jadeitite, omphacitite, chloromelanite, dolostone, marble and talc), for these are not present in Costa Rica. The geological evolution in the past did not favor the formation of jadeitite and other mentioned materials in Costa Rica. Hence, social jade made from material not present in Costa Rica must have been sourced from metamorphic regions extending from northern Nicaragua to Mexico. Jadeitite and associated rocks (omphacitite, chloromelanite mineral) were most probably sourced from Guatemala. Known sources of jadeitite in the Greater Antilles (Cuba and the Dominican Republic) may also have been involved in the trade of jade that eventually arrived in Costa Rica. However, geological and anthropological arguments can be raised in favor of a “lost” source of jade in northern Venezuela. In a synoptic view, archaeological evidence, including lapidary, pottery and precious-metal craftwork, points to a strong commercial Pre-Columbian network extending from México to the Isthmus of Panama and further east to northern Colombia, Venezuela and the Antilles. Detailed petrological and geochemical studies of jade (and related rocks) artifacts in Costa Rica are needed in order to advance knowledge of the complex economic and cultural networks of Mesoamerican–Antillean Pre-Columbian societies. Features nice maps of the major faults in Guatemala, Cuba and the Dominican Republic.