Starch Granule Analysis of Roasting Pit Features from Housepit 54 Reveal Temporal and Spatial Patterns in Geophyte Use Over Time

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Housepit 54 Project at Bridge River, British Columbia: Multidisciplinary Contributions to Household Archaeology" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

We present results from starch granule analysis on thirty-five lithic artifacts from two roasting pit features at Housepit 54, Bridge River, BC. One of the features dates to ~1500-1300 cal. B.P. and is 94,306 cubic cm in size. The second feature dates to ~1300-1000 cal. B.P. and is larger at 168,780 cubic cm. The purpose of the microbotanical analyses was to determine which plants were used in roasting pit/hearth construction or were roasted themselves and therefore incorporated into the diets of the site occupants. Our results make clear that geophytes were an important component of the foods prepared in each feature, thereby supporting oral histories and ethnographic and ethnobotanic research previously conducted on pit-roasting features in the region. Further analysis of the two differently sized pits indicates a relationship between starch preservation and roasting pit/hearth construction, and differences between resources roasted in each type of roasting pit/hearth.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• The Housepit 54 Project at Bridge River, British Columbia: Multidisciplinary Contributions to Household Archaeology

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 50160