A Longue Duree Perspective of Household Sustainability in the Early Bronze Age Southern Levant: Groundstone Recycling at Tell es-Safi/Gath, Israel

Among early urban societies of the southern Levant, the nature of commodity usage and house organization is relatively underexplored. Recent excavations at Tell es-Safi/Gath, Israel, have uncovered a large Early Bronze Age settlement with a domestic neighborhood containing multiple successive phases of occupation. These phases have yielded a combined groundstone assemblage with objects of a variety of types, lithologies, and conditions. We report a cross-reference evaluation of these variables, focusing on their patterns of secondary use (recycling) and disuse. The results indicate that many objects were recycled as part of the construction make-up of floors, installations, and walls. Disparities between the treatment of artifacts of local and non-local lithologies are highlighted, which reflect different attitudes towards their perceived utility and value. Recycling practices appear as part of an intertwined system of pragmatic solutions, resource management, and symbolic attachment.