Waste Management at the End of the Stone Age

Abstract

This article describes examples of waste management systems from archaeological sites in Europe and the Middle East. These examples are then contextualized in the broader perspectives of environmental history. We can confidently claim that the natural resource use of societies predating the Lower Palaeolithic was in equilibrium with the environment. In sharp contrast stand communities from the Upper Palaeolithic and onwards, when agriculture appeared and provided opportunities for what seemed like unlimited expansion.

Waste Management in Bronze Age Europe

“…Mining activities create waste materials, whether it is waste from mining itself or whether it is waste from the subsequent processing of the mined material. We attempted to summarize examples of mining and subsequent waste treatment in the preceding lower Stone Age in an article on waste in the Neolithic and Chalcolithic (Havlíček & Kuča, 2017).…”