Gifts of the Ancestors: Secondary Lithic Recycling in Appalachian Summit Prehistory

of chipped stone tools were obtained by direct procurement from bedrock and transported geologic sources, through exchange, and by means of scavenging stone artifacts from archaeological deposits. Recycling and reuse of found stone artifacts has been historically documented (Amick 2007; Ascher 1968; Gould et al. 1971; Hill 1938; Sedig 2010; Tindale 1965) and identified in the archaeological record (Amick 2007; Camilli 1988; Freeman 1957; Goodwin 1960; Hayden 1976; Jolly 1970; Rolland and Dibble 1990; Sassaman 1993; Vaquero et al. 2012: Whyte 1984) as far back as the Middle Paleolithic (Debénath 1992). Amick (2007) suggests that scavenging and recycling, or “secondary recycling,” was either opportunistic, in which discovered artifacts were occasionally recovered and fashioned into new tools, or systematic, in which they were decidedly sought to provide material for new tools. Systematic secondary lithic recycling was a procurement option that sometimes may have influenced decisions of mobility and settlement, and for some societies and in certain circumstances may have been the only profitable option for obtaining high quality lithic material. Much like recycling today, it was sometimes necessitated because of diminishing natural resources such as obsidian at finite quarry sites (Amick 2007), and because of developing restrictions to natural lithic sources owing to decreased mobility, territorial circumscription, or ownership control (Sassaman 1993). Regardless of its motivation, systematic secondary lithic recycling has undoubtedly influenced structures of human settlement, exchange, and technological organization; raw material compositions of lithic assemblages; and archaeological constructions of lithic artifact typologies (Amick 2007; Rolland and Dibble 1990; Sassaman 1993; Vaquero et al. 2012). Archaeologists, consequently, must take measures to recognize evidence of secondary recycling before attempting to reconstruct and explain these potentially affected cultural phenomGIFTS OF THE ANCESTORS: SECONDARY LITHIC RECYCLING IN APPALACHIAN SUMMIT PREHISTORY