The recycling of material culture today and during the Paleolithic

Archaeologists are being increasingly challenged to apply their methods and perspectives to address contemporary global concerns, such as material consumption and recycling. The archaeological investigation of recycling can contribute to understanding its behavioral causes and situational contexts because it can reveal systematic patterning in its temporal, spatial, and formal dimensions. In this paper, I review some of the archaeological evidence of artifact recycling and a few lessons drawn from those studies, including general patterns in lithic recycling behavior and needs to address ambiguity in the definition of recycling, compounding factors of equifinality in lithic reduction, and recognizing opportunism in recycling behavior. This evidence is also used to consider the behavioral and environmental circumstances of patterned recycling in the broader study of material culture and human behavior. It is argued that archaeological studies can offer useful contributions to such universal theories and that archaeological explanations about recycling behavior would benefit from greater integration with the larger body of historical and social science studies on this topic.