Storage pits are underground cists that were used historically to protect the seeds for the following year's crops, and to stop surplus food from being eaten by insects and

rodents Rodents (from Latin , 'to gnaw') are mammals of the order Rodentia (), which are characterized by a single pair of continuously growing incisors in each of the upper and lower jaws. About 40% of all mammal species are rodents. They are nat ...

. These underground pits were sometimes lined and covered, for example with slabs of stone and

bark Bark may refer to: * Bark (botany), an outer layer of a woody plant such as a tree or stick * Bark (sound), a vocalization of some animals (which is commonly the dog) Places * Bark, Germany * Bark, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, Poland Arts, ...

and tightly sealed with

adobe Adobe ( ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for ''mudbrick''. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is used to refer to any kind of e ...

.''Man in the San Juan Valley.''
Aztec Ruins National Monument, National Park Service. January 13, 2001. Retrieved 10-18-2011.

Examples

Sannai-Maruyama Site in

Aomori is the capital city of Aomori Prefecture, in the Tōhoku region of Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 278,964 in 136,457 households, and a population density of 340 people per square kilometer spread over the city's total area of ...

, Aomori Prefecture,

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

, contains storage pits that were used when

hunter-gatherer A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, fungi, ...

s developed from a nomadic lifestyle to settled villages about 3900 BC to 2900 BC. Large storage pits were built underground to conceal their presence, a preferred method used by mobile populations in many parts of the world. Weston-super-Mare, Worlebury hillfort - geograph

Weston-super-Mare, Worlebury hillfort - geograph

Worlebury Camp storage pits are 93 storage pits found at the Iron Age hill fort that stood north of the town of Weston-super-Mare in Somerset, England. The pits were cut into

bedrock In geology, bedrock is solid Rock (geology), rock that lies under loose material (regolith) within the crust (geology), crust of Earth or another terrestrial planet. Definition Bedrock is the solid rock that underlies looser surface mater ...

for "keeps", one is a ditch for protection), and 74 are outside the "keep" but still enclosed within the exterior walls. The inhabitants used them to store grain, as is evidenced by the kernels of barley and wheat and the shards of pots that were found in the pits. Also found were remains of burned woven baskets and, dated to the 2nd or 1st century BC, sling stones and

spindle whorls A spindle whorl is a disc or spherical object fitted onto the Spindle (textiles), spindle to increase and maintain the speed of the spin. Historically, whorls have been made of materials like amber, antler, bone, ceramic, coral, glass, stone, meta ...

. and close to the village of Worle. Remains of human skeletons were found in 18 of the pits, 10 of which show evidence of a violent death.

Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...

storage pit sites remain clearly visible in many place in New Zealand."Historic Opapaka Pa"
doc.govt.nz Pits were dug into soft rock faces as well as into earth, especially in Maori Pa (hillforts). Maori storage pits can be confused with fighting pits and also pits which were excavated to extract drainage material, especially on old river terraces where pumice had been deposited. The pumice was mixed with heavier soil to promote drainage for growing

kumara Kumara may refer to: Places * Kumara (Mali), a province * Kumara, New Zealand, a town * Kumara (New Zealand electorate), a Parliamentary electorate Other uses * Kumara Illangasinghe, an Anglican bishop in Sri Lanka * Kumara (surname) * The Four ...

(sweet potato), the principal vegetable crop of the Maori after about 1500. The Maori name for a storage pit is ''rua''. An excavation found such storage pits on the sloping banks of the Waikato River below the

Waikato Museum Waikato Museum ( mi, Te Whare Taonga o Waikato) is a regional museum located in Hamilton, New Zealand. The museum manages ArtsPost, a shop and gallery space for New Zealand art and design. Both are managed by the Hamilton City Council. Outside ...

in early 2012.

References

{{Prehistoric technology Asian archaeology Archaeology of England Native American history of Colorado