Gifts of the Ancestors: Secondary Lithic Recycling in Appalachian Summit Prehistory
Abstract Evidence of systematic secondary lithic recycling at the Katie Griffith site and Church Rocksheiter No. 2 in the mountains of western North Carolina is presented. It is proposed that recycling and reuse of found stone artifacts in the Early Woodland period of the Appalachian Summit region of the southeastern United States was a regular lithic procurement option. It is concluded that systematic secondary lithic recycling was widespread in prehistory, provides an avenue for exploring economizing responses to raw material procurement challenges, and must be accounted for when using lithic artifacts in reconstructions and explanations of human mobility, exchange, and technological organization, and in archaeological constructions of lithic artifact typologies.