Archaeologists frequently explain tool curation by its efficiency. Such explanations ignore the fact that curation is a complex activity and that its component parts are efficient in different ways. The author argues that the nature and distribution of lithic resources critically affect technological efficiency and discusses two aspects of curation, maintenance and recycling, asserting that they are responses to raw material in certain contexts. Ethnographic and archaeological examples support this hypothesis and highlight the relationship between subsistence-settlement organization, raw material distribution, and technology.