The form and function of subterranean food storage structures: an ethnoarcheological study of the social and environmental determinants of pit storage

Abstract

This study identifies the principal factors affecting the selection and use of food storage pits through a cross-cultural examination of a worldwide sample of pit using societies. Three reasons why subterranean facilities were used for storage are identified: (1) concealment; (2) preservation; and (3) processing. Three authors, DeBoer (1988), Gilman (1983, 1987), and Ward (1985), suggest that food storage pits are usually used for concealment and that societies that used subterranean storage will usually have a low degree of reliance in agriculture and a residential mobility strategy. This research throws these authors hypothesis into doubt. This study shows that storage pits are used for preservation as often as for concealment. Additionally, the degree of agricultural dependence seems to play little part in delineating which groups will use pit storage for concealment and strongly suggests that seasonal settlement abandonment is not always associated with a need to hide food.

Several conditions are apparently always present when pit storage is selected for concealment. First, the condition that triggers a need for concealment and the subsequent selection of pit storage to solve this need is the presence of human predation. Second, there is always a relatively high diversity of commodities stored in pits by groups that use subterranean facilities for concealment and pit storage is often the main storage technique practiced by these groups.

Several conditions are apparently frequently, but not always, associated with the use of pit storage for preservation. With one notable exception, the use of pits for preservation usually entails a lower diversity of goods that are stored in pits and a lesser importance for pit storage in the overall subsistence economy. Many groups that use pits for preservation also relied heavily on above ground storage facilities.

This study shows that the socioeconomic conditions associated with the use of subterranean storage are highly divere, and very complex. Consequently, it is very difficult to delineate the necessary conditions associated with the use of these facilities. Furthermore, the sufficient conditions that have been described in this paper would usually not be archeologically visible.