Recycling practices among ancient societies are rarely systematically explored. When such practices are considered, they are often examined in dichotomous terms as either an elite artisanal capacity for producing meaning or as part of practical logics of rationality and efficiency in confronting scarcity. The study of groundstone tool, ceramic, and architectural recycling at the Maya site of Ucanal, Peten, Guatemala, challenges this false dichotomy in highlighting the varied ways meaning and value are produced. Diachronic and contextual analyses reveal that recycling practices of quotidian materials, such as groundstone and ceramics, did not increase during periods of crisis nor were they more common among modest households as compared to higher-status households. Likewise, evidence of substantial efforts to recycle elite and monumental building materials during the Terminal Classic period (ca. 830–950/1000 CE) did not coincide with a scarcity of labor or building materials. Such findings underscore the need to consider the role of abundance as it relates to recycling, a factor that also drives much contemporary recycling.

很少对古代社会中的回收实践进行探索。当考虑到这种做法时，通常将它们分为两类，既作为产生意义的精英手工能力，又作为应对稀缺性的理性和效率的实践逻辑的一部分。在危地马拉佩滕的乌卡纳尔市玛雅遗址，对地下工具，陶瓷和建筑回收利用进行的研究，对这种错误的二分法提出了挑战，强调了产生意义和价值的各种方式。历时性和上下文分析表明，在危机期间，诸如石材和陶瓷等quotidian材料的回收实践并未增加，在温和家庭中，与较高地位的家庭相比，回收利用实践并不普遍。同样ca. 公元830–950 / 1000年）与劳动力或建筑材料的短缺并不吻合。这些发现强调了需要考虑丰度在回收方面的作用，这一因素也推动了当代的回收。