In april 2023 the Dutch government installed a 15 cent deposit on tin cans to encourage people to recycle their cans. Recycling is however not a recent invention, it has been around since early prehistory. During the Vlaardingen Culture phase (3400-2500 BC) flint axes were often recycled to make other tools such as scrapers and flint borers. To better understand the recycling of these axes we conducted several experiments with reconstructed flint axes. The experiments were now published in the journal Lithic Technology.

Based on the experiments carried by the team of "Putting Life into Late Neolithic Houses" project, the conclusions were reached that importance of recycled flint axes in this period was so far underestimated. They now estimate that on some sites up to 40% of all the flint originally came from broken/reused flint axes. The article was published open access and it can be downloaded via this link.

EXARC is partner in the project, which is coordinated by Leiden University.