Bell-shaped pits (Other Keyword)
1-2 (2 Records)
Bell-shaped storage pits are a global phenomenon, and most (but not all) of these features were used for grain storage. Native Southwesterners’ use of bell-shaped pits began well back in pre-ceramic times. Both highly mobile hunter-gatherers and less mobile farmers dug and used them, and in a very general sense storage pit sizes track variation in settlement-subsistence patterns. Specifically, mobile hunter-gatherers dispersed small caches throughout their foraging ranges. This was a sort of...
Bell-shaped Storage Pits and Social Evolution in the Yuanqu Basin, North China (2015)
Control and manipulation of stored food was an important force driving human social evolution. Among the more distinctive forms of storage facilities are bell-shaped pits, which have a global distribution and were common in ancient north-central China. In this paper, size variation of 86 bell-shaped pits, spanning the Neolithic to Early Bronze Age in China’s Yuanqu Basin, are examined in relation to other evidence of sociopolitical complexity and change. The data show a significant increase in...