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Reflection on the origins of recycling: A paleolithic perspective

Article in Lithic Technology · March 2014

DOI: 10.1179/0197726113Z.00000000025

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 REFLECTION ON THE ORIGINS OF RECYCLING: A
PALEOLITHIC PERSPECTIVE
DANIEL S. AMICK
Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
INTRODUCTION
An international gathering of about  archaeolo-
gists convened at Tel-Aviv University on October
–,  for a research workshop entitled
“The Origins of Recycling: A Paleolithic Perspec-
tive,” which was designed to present evidence
and discuss the significance of recycling behavior
during the old stone age (Figure ). A total of 
formal presentations were given at this workshop
sponsored by the Israel Science Foundation, The
Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological
Research, and the School of Jewish Studies and
the Institute of Archaeology at Tel-Aviv Univer-
sity. The conference organizers were Ran Barkai
(Tel-Aviv University, Israel), Cristina Lemorini
(La Sapienza University, Rome, Italy), and
Manuel Vaquero (IPHES and Universitat Rovira
i Virgili, Tarragona, Spain). The bulk of the
papers concerned recycling of chipped-stone
tools and participants were able to examine the
physical evidence of artifact recycling from the
Israeli sites of Qesem Cave (Acheulo-Yabrudian),
Revadim (Late Acheulian), Tabun Cave (Acheu-
lian and Mousterian) and Nesher (Mousterian).
Field excursions were conducted to Qesem Cave,
Manot Cave (Middle Paleolithic and Upper Paleo-
lithic), and the well-known Carmel Caves (Tabun,
Jamal, El-Wad, and Skhul). Guests were also able
to examine the skeletal collections in the Physical
Anthropology laboratory at Tel-Aviv University.
The proceedings will be published as a special
issue of Quaternary International. A web page
describing the workshop can be found at http://
paleolithicrecycling.wix.com/recycling and below
is a brief review of the highlights of these proceedings.
The main goal of this meeting was to address the
growing awareness of prehistoric evidence regard-
ing human recycling, reusing and resharpening
activities in Paleolithic assemblages. Scholars gath-
ered to share their observations, analytical
methods, arguments, interpretations, and expla-
nations of these phenomena. Discussion focused
© W. S. Maney & Son Ltd 
DOI: ./Z.
on chipped-stone technology, but evidence from
bone technologies, and contemporary recycling
systems were considered as well. Much of the dis-
cussion focused on describing potential examples
of recycling in Paleolithic assemblages; and explor-
ing the definition of recycling, its analytical recog-
nition and operationalization, and its behavioral
significance. The participants described a wide
range of technological procedures involved in
recycling and identified several distinct categories
of recycling and reusing. The issues of life-history
temporality and changes in the form and function
of artifacts played an important role in our debates
about how to categorize and identify recycling
from an archaeological standpoint. While we did
not come to any formal resolutions about these
issues, we were able to explore and unpack the
concept of recycling with enough clarity to see
sufficient value in continuing discussions on this
topic. Some of the major themes that emerged
from our discussions included the challenges of
dealing with fluctuating temporal indicators such
as differential patination rates, and understanding
the potential factors conditioning conservation of
energy and raw materials through recycling.
First we learned about the archaeological
context of Paleolithic recycling at Bolomor Cave,
Spain (Ruth Blasco); Abric Romaní, Spain (Gema
Chacón and Manuel Vaquero); Haua Fteah,
Libya (Peter Hiscock); Castel di Guido, Italy (Gio-
vanni Boschian); Tabun Cave (Ofer Bar-Yosef and
Anna Belfer-Cohen); and Qesem Cave (Avi
Gopher and Ran Barkai). These presentations
were followed by four sessions organized to
cover the topics of reusing and recycling lithics,
bone, and ivory; consideration of artifact life his-
tories, recycling, and resharpening; understanding
recycling through use-wear studies; and consider-
ing the meaning and significance of recycling. Pre-
sentations in the first session included a review and
analysis of the use and re-use of knapped flakes
from the Mode  site of Fuente Nueve , Orce,
Lithic Technology , Vol.  No. , –

FIGURE . Participants in the – October,  workshop at Tel-Aviv University. Workshop organizers: Avi Gopher (first
row, fourth from left), Ran Barkai (first row, fifth from left), Cristina Lemorini (first row, far right), and Manuel Vaquero (second
row, second from right).
Spain (Deborah Barsky and colleagues); recycling
of flint in Lower to Middle Paleolithic assemblages
at Tabun (Ron Shimelmitz); Late Acheulian lithic
recycling at Revadim (Aviad Agam and col-
leagues); recycling of cores and handaxes during
the Middle Paleolithic in Western Europe (Emilie
Claud and colleagues); modes of flint recycling at
Qesem Cave (Yoni Parush and colleagues); intra-
site variability in recycling at Qesem (Ella Assaf
and colleagues); recycling in the Lower and
Middle Paleolithic industries at Hummal, Syria
(Dorota Wojtczak); recycling evidence in the
Iberian Middle Paleolithic (Felipe Cuartero); tem-
poral trends in recycling in the Middle Paleolithic
through Neolithic assemblages at Haua Fteah
(Peter Hiscock); and lithic recycling in the Aur-
ignacian deposits at Hayonim Cave, Israel (Bar-
Yosef and Belfer-Cohen). These examples of
lithic recycling were followed by papers on bone
and ivory recycling at the Middle Pleistocene
sites of Bolomor Cave, Qesem Cave, and Gran
Dolina TD-, Spain (Jordi Rosell and col-
leagues); production and use of decomposed
ivory in the fabrication of Central European Aur-
ignacian artifacts (Leif Steguweit); Middle Pleisto-
cene use and reuse of elephant carcasses at Castel
di Guido (Giovanni Boschian and Daniela
Saccá); and evidence for the use and reuse of mega-
faunal bones at the Pleistocene sites of Owl Cave
and Inglewood, USA (Landon Karr).
The second session was organized around the
topics of lithic artifact life histories, recycling and
resharpening. Papers included an examination of
the effects of resharpening on scrapers and
REFLECTION ON THE ORIGINS OF RECYCLING 
Keilmesser bifacial knives (Olaf Jöris and Radu
Iovita); artifact life histories and land use strategies
in the Middle and Upper Paleolithic of Central
Europe (Yvonne Völlmecke and colleagues);
measurement of endscraper reduction at the
Clovis (Gainey) site of Nobles Pond, USA
(Michael Shott); scrapers and scraper recycling in
the Middle Paleolithic assemblage of Nesher
Ramla, Israel (Yossi Zaidner); scraper life histories
from the Late Middle Paleolithic assemblage at Ein
Qashish (Alexandra Sumner and Ariel Malinsky-
Buller); and evidence of recycling in lithic and
shell artifacts of the Middle Paleolithic in southern
Italy (Marco Peresani). Use-wear perspectives on
lithic recycling were presented in the third
session. Presentations covered the functional
meaning of recycling at Qesem Cave (Cristina
Lemorini and colleagues), the use of biface manu-
facturing flakes in French Middle Paleolithic
assemblages (Claud), and resharpening and recy-
cling at French Magdalenian sites (Sylvie Beyries
and Marie-Isabelle Cattin).
The final session of the workshop considered the
meaning and significance of recycling. Papers in
this session included consideration of factors con-
ditioning recycling in preindustrial societies com-
pared to today (Daniel Amick); lithic reuse and
recycling at Lower and Middle Paleolithic quarry
workshops in central Iberia (Javier Baena Preysler
and Irene Ortiz Nieto-Márquez); integration of
lithic recycling into the chaîne opératoire of
Middle Paleolithic technology in northern Iberia
(Joseba Rios-Garaizar and colleagues); effects of
occupation span, raw material availability, and
Lithic Technology , Vol.  No. , –
 DANIEL S. AMICK
site activities on the frequency and organization of
lithic recycling in northwestern France at the end
of the Pleistocene (Jérémie Jacquier and Nicolas
Naudinot); and temporal variability in lithic recy-
cling at Abric Romaní during the end of the Middle
Paleolithic (Manuel Vaquero and colleagues).
The workshop concluded with a general discus-
sion led by Avi Gopher, Cristina Lemorini, Thor-
sten Uthmeier, Jordi Rosell, Liliane Meignen,
and Manuel Vaquero. Participants were struck
with the poignant comment by Avraham Ronen
who reminded us that evidence of ancient recy-
cling behavior might be especially remarkable
because those who picked up and reused these arti-
facts may have been the first to contemplate a
sense of history and connection with ancestors
who had passed before. In this sense, recycling
may reflect the possible physical demonstration
of the recognition of historical time in our
species. Other highlights of our deliberations
included laudable efforts in recognizing and classi-
fying patterns of recycling among the lithic assem-
blages at the sites discussed at the conference,
investigation of temporal and spatial patterning
of Paleolithic recycling at a wide range of scales
from intra-site to intra-and inter-regional, wres-
tling with the issue of intentionality of recycling
as systematic and planned versus unsystematic
and opportunistic behavior, attempts at explain-
ing the shifting frequencies and modes of recy-
cling, and grappling with the long-term and
universal significance of recycling behaviors in
human history.
CRITICAL REFLECTION
Archaeologists have documented evidence of lithic
recycling for more than a century, most reliably
through the phenomenon known as “double
patina” in which weathered artifacts are picked
up and flaked again by later peoples (Martin
), but defining methods for systematically
documenting and measuring recycling in lithic
assemblages has remained very challenging for
archaeologists. For example, George Odell
(: ) stated that “recycling is a concept that
is too difficult to characterize adequately in inter-
preting the archaeological record” and went on
to say that he “virtually exhausted the logical
ways that recycling can be measured and have
failed to find one that works.” This conference
demonstrated that much progress has been
achieved in characterizing and operationalizing
this concept during the past decade. Although
there is not unanimous agreement among our con-
sortium about how to measure recycling and its
meaning, those problems are not unexpected at
such an early stage of the exploration of this
topic. There appears to be abundant archaeologi-
cal evidence for Paleolithic recycling as detailed
at this workshop and there are equally useful eth-
nographic descriptions of the preindustrial recy-
cling of lithic artifacts (Amick ). Theory
building on this topic remains underdeveloped
but considerable progress was accomplished in
identifying some of the challenges and opportu-
nities we face in addressing that goal. In particular,
we identified the need to control for temporal gaps
in recycling episodes, measuring the number of
distinctive cycles involved, assessing the energetic
benefits of recycling, distinguishing formal and
functional changes (or not) in evaluating the vari-
able motivations for recycling behaviors, and
understanding the diverse circumstances that
many have conditioned recycling in preindustrial
societies. One issue that repeatedly arose was the
need to distinguish maintenance and reuse activi-
ties from recycling and how to document and
measure those different processes in the case of
Paleolithic artifacts.
In response to these issues, I proposed a para-
digm for unpacking the concept of recycling in
various situations (Figure ). This paradigm dis-
tinguishes Paleolithic (preindustrial) recycling
from contemporary recycling, which is generally
viewed as a form of waste disposal practiced by
modern consumers at the behest of commercial
and political forces (Hawkins ). It also dis-
tinguishes discernible temporal gaps in recycling
behavior, which often involves the retrieval of
materials from archaeological context for reuse
or alteration versus conditions in which temporal
gaps are not discernible in these episodes. One
issue that arose during our deliberations was the
need to distinguish the issues of changes versus
no changes in artifact form as well as artifact func-
tion during recycling. The proposed labels for
these differences in artifact maintenance, reuse,
repair, and recycling in Figure  are only intended
to provide a framework for conceptualizing the
variation in the conditions leading to these differ-
ent activities and behaviors. It should be noted
that this suggested paradigm was not determined
or agreed upon by the participants — it is only
my own attempt at responding to the need for a
theoretical framework for addressing the issues
presented during our discussions. Although Schif-
fer (: –) has developed a behavioral
Lithic Technology , Vol.  No. , –

FIGURE . Paradigm for conceptualizing maintenance, reuse, and recycling during the Paleolithic and today.
paradigm in which he distinguishes reclamation
processes (salvage or recovery and reuse from
archaeological context) from reuse processes
(which include various sorts of recycling practices
while objects remain in systemic context), it has
remained difficult to implement these concepts
archaeologically.
The paradigm illustrated in Figure  is purpose-
fully designed to accommodate the diverse kinds
of archaeological observations described by the
participants in the workshop. First, it should be
noted that recycling processes today differ
greatly from those of the preindustrial past. In a
broad sense, similar economic motivations for
material reclamation and reuse or recycling can
be identified in the preindustrial history of our
species, but prior to the industrial age of consu-
merism and rapid material disposability, artifacts
often had longer use-lives (including reclamation)
as we lived by making and mending and the
routine salvage activities described by the historian
Susan Strasser (). Contemporary materials
recycling has become a more complex globalized
activity involving substantial contrasts between
the world’s affluent consumer societies (Lucas
: ; MacBride ) and the poorest of the
poor (Medina ). Today, two percent of
the world’s population is engaged full time in the
work of materials reclamation and most live in
the developing world. Only a fraction of that per-
centage has been documented to be engaged in the
repair and personal reuse of salvaged materials
(typically as the result of extreme poverty). Con-
temporary reuse and recycling rarely involves
any substantial temporal gaps or efforts at recla-
mation of artifacts and materials from the archae-
ological record. However, modern mining of
landfills occurs and experts believe it may
become more common in the future (Krook et al.
). One major reason for these limited
REFLECTION ON THE ORIGINS OF RECYCLING 
modern efforts at reclamation from archaeological
deposits is that the materials have decayed or
become obsolete because of the rapid pace of tech-
nological evolution during the industrial age. As a
result, when artifacts are reclaimed from the
archaeological record today, it is often for the pur-
poses of scientific research, curiosity, antiquarian-
ism, or commercial looting.
Identifying recycling in the archaeological
record is complicated by the materials we have
to work with as well as our limitations in recogniz-
ing the temporality of events. In particular,
because lithic technology is a subtractive process,
manufacturing results in smaller and smaller pro-
ducts. Consequently, brittle lithic materials have
limited potential for recycling in comparison to
the pliable materials used in additive manufactur-
ing (e.g., metal, glass, plastic). This malleable
property may have been one of the keys in the
overall replacement of lithic technology by metal-
lurgy (Rosen ).
In evaluating recycling activities, it becomes
necessary to separate the changes in artifact form
versus artifact function because of the demon-
strated inequivalence of those categories (Odell
). Thus, two sub-paradigms are developed
to accommodate that distinction in recycling of
form versus recycling of function. Just as analysts
must normally use caution in making functional
assumptions from the formal attributes of arti-
facts, the same caveat applies in making evalu-
ations of recycling processes. Sometimes
functions can change in reuse and recycling and
sometimes they remain the same. Likewise, some-
times artifact form may change during recycling
and sometimes it does not. When function and
form do not change, it seems best to consider
these alterations as part of tool maintenance and
repair or as “secondary reuse” if they are being
reclaimed from the archaeological record.
Lithic Technology , Vol.  No. , –
 DANIEL S. AMICK
Recycling rates today are a function of ideology,
convenience, material economic value, concerns
over material toxicity, and the cost/benefit of
using recycled versus virgin materials (Krook
et al. ; Lucas ; MacBride ;
Medina ). Some of these factors seem to
have encouraged the intensity of recycling in the
preindustrial past, especially the issues related to
convenience and access, material value, and inten-
tional practices. For example, preindustrial recy-
cling seems to have been more frequent under
conditions of surface exposure, stability, and
erosion; and when desired resources became
depleted. Greater opportunities for material recla-
mation were provided when there was frequent
reoccupation of sites, redundant land use patterns,
longer occupation lengths, low mobility, and
sedentism. Material value also conditioned recy-
cling rates as a function of the intrinsic properties
of the material (size, shape, homogeneity, hard-
ness, etc.), and reduction in costs of procurement
and preparation these preformed artifacts pre-
sented to scavengers. Archaeological indicators
of intentional practices designed to facilitate recy-
cling include the creation of stockpiles or hoards,
and concentrated waste dumps. As such, archaeol-
ogists should consider the potential for waste
deposits to represent materials in passive storage,
especially when there is evidence of concentrating,
hoarding, stockpiling, and caching behavior. In
effect, the archaeological landscape served as a
form of artificial landscape provisioning in poten-
tially recyclable resources. Given the general abun-
dance of archaeological waste on the landscape, it
might be useful to ask when such waste is not
worth recycling. Current evidence suggests that
recycling is generally limited to situations in
which the material quality is too low to meet
desired needs, when material resources are highly
available and abundant, when material resources
are being consumed very slowly, and when the
economic costs of time/energy that would be
required by recycling are too high.
The presentations at this conference demon-
strated that material recycling has an exceptionally
deep history within the technological history of
humans and our ancestors. We accomplished a
great deal at the workshop in terms of learning
how to recognize that behavior, how to measure
it, and how to understand its meaning and signifi-
cance. We found that much of the evidence of arti-
fact recycling has been overlooked or difficult to
identify, and that it has the potential to tell us a
great deal about the activities and the
organizational and behavioral strategies of past
peoples. The evidence presented at this conference
also demonstrated that archaeologists would
benefit from giving closer consideration to the ten-
dency for people to view archaeological sites and
material waste as a potential resource for recla-
mation and reuse. The conditions under which
that can occur vary, which makes the careful
evaluation of the context of this behavioral evi-
dence very important to assessing its meaning.
Despite improved recognition of the significance
of this behavior in the archaeological record of
the Paleolithic, it is still important to distinguish
recycling as a fairly limited form of resource con-
servation. Among material conservation options,
recycling ranks behind repairing and reusing
materials, and it is much less effective than
simply reducing the amount of resource consump-
tion (King et al. ). However, the fact that this
behavior has an antiquity that extends deep into
the Paleolithic, suggests that our ancestors found
recycling to be an effective strategy in facilitating
their overall survival strategies regardless of its
sustainability.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The participants benefitted greatly from the hard work of the
organizing committee: Ran Barkai, Cristina Lemorini, and
Manual Vaquero. We were especially grateful for the hospi-
tality and exceptional attention to detail by the local support-
ing cast of Avi Gopher, Yoni Parush, Ella Assaf, Aviad Agam,
and Flavia Venditti who made our stay very comfortable and
enjoyable as well as intellectually stimulating. Thanks to all
the participants for helping me to advance my own thinking
about this issue.
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Hawkins, G.  The Ethics of Waste: How We Relate to
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NOTE ON CONTRIBUTOR
Correspondence to: Daniel S. Amick, Department of Anthropology, Loyola University Chicago, Lake Shore Campus,
W. Sheridan, Chicago, Illinois , USA. Email: damick@luc.edu

Lithic Technology , Vol.  No. , –

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