A storage pit is the archaeological imprint left by past storage of artifacts, mostly food or other perishable items, in a hole or pit excavated into the ground for that purpose. Storage pits are very useful archaeological features: their analyses help the archaeologist understand what people ate, when they ate it, and how they stored things for the future. Their location within a house or in a settlement can indicate whether the people shared foodstuffs within a community or kept it for themselves; the numbers and capacity of storage pits can tell us the relative wealth or length of occupation for a particular site or household, or the importance of feasting to a community.
Storage pits vary in complexity depending both on purpose and cultural practices. Some are simple caches where a hole was dug and artifacts were placed in for keeping. Others are elaborate constructions meant to keep foodstuffs for long periods of time, such as over the winter. These may have been lined with a clay layer or stones to keep burrowing rodents out, and the food may have been carefully sorted. Storage pit shapes may be small and shallow bowls, or deep and deliberately shaped wells.
Storage pits may be reused. Once the food stored there was consumed, the pit may have been cleaned out and reused for storage again; or simply used as a refuse pit, to place food trash out of sight (and smell) of the residents. Some storage pits were reused for deliberate human or animal burials.
Archaeologically, storage pits are sometimes difficult to recognize: the perishable items were consumed or rotted, and wall collapse may have obscured their original shape. Rodent burrows and postmolds are other kinds of bowl-shaped stains which can be confused with storage pits. Evidence supporting the interpretation of features as storage pits includes (but is not limited to):
- Subtle or not-so-subtle soil discolorations
- The organic nature of the material within the pit compared to the exterior of the pit
- Opal phytoliths, pollen or burned macro remains left after the food has decayed
- The inclusion of charcoal fragments indicating deliberate burning
- The presence of associated stone or bone artifacts
- The presence of pit architecture, including shape and lining
Some Recent Papers on Storage Pits
Alconini S. 2008. Dis-embedded centers and architecture of power in the fringes of the Inka empire: New perspectives on territorial and hegemonic strategies of domination. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 27(1):63-81.
Hastorf CA. 2008. Food and feasting, social and political aspects. In: Pearsall DM, editor. Encyclopedia of Archaeology. London: Elsevier Inc. p 1386-1395.
Kent S. 1999. The archaeological visibility of storage: Delineating storage from trash areas. American Antiquity 64(1):79-94.
Kuijt I. 2009. What Do We Really Know about Food Storage, Surplus, and Feasting in Preagricultural Communities? Current Anthropology 50(5):641-644.
Morgan C. 2012. Modeling Modes of Hunter-Gatherer Food Storage. American Antiquity 77(4):714-736.
Smith CS. 2003. Hunter–gatherer mobility, storage, and houses in a marginal environment: an example from the mid-Holocene of Wyoming. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 22(2):162-189.
Sobel E, and Bettles G. 2000. Winter hunger, winter myths: Subsistence risk and mythology among the Klamath and Modoc. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 19(3):276-316.
Stopp MP. 2002. Ethnohistoric analogues for storage as an adaptive strategy in northeastern subarctic prehistory. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 21(3):301-328.
