Cache and Trash: Variability in Storage Pits found at the Bridge River Site, Middle Fraser B.C.

Summary

Prehistoric households living within Housepit 54 at the Bridge River winter village in south-central British Columbia participated in complex strategies of food acquisition, storage, and food waste disposal. The storage of wind-dried salmon, smoked- and dried- meat from terrestrial animals, as well as dried and preserved roots, berries, and other plant materials were all integral to over-wintering subsistence strategies. Pits dug into the interior floors and those located at the exterior of pithouses provided vital storage areas for preserved foodstuffs. James Teit, an ethnographer of the Upper Lillooet, suggested that food was stored “in two kinds of cellars” –one, presumably an interior, bark-lined cache and another, situated “near the house, and made with less care.” To what degree do interior cache pits and exterior cache pits differ in size, shape, content, and perhaps inferably, function? At Housepit 54 interior pits are commonly found filled, not only with faunal remains, but with FCR, lithic debitage, and other detritus, including biological waste. This study examines what formation processes likely contributed to variability in cache pit materials at the household level and what difference (if any) was there between the use-life of interior vs. exterior caches?

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Trash Rules: Intrasite Zooarchaeology

Keywords

Spatial Coverage