Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology

This paper reports subterranean, or subfloor, rock-lined cache pits built in sheltered places by aboriginal peoples in the California deserts. These features have received almost no attention in California because excavations traditionally have emphasized the recovery and analysis of portable artifacts. Studies in which nonportable structural features of any kind have been discovered, exposed, and systematically investigated in California are few. Failure to more consistently investigate nonportable facilities has hindered interpretation of the archaeological record in the desert region.

The purposes of this paper are: (1) to discuss the organizational strategies of hunter-gatherers that are likely to have resulted in the construction and use of rock-lined cache pits; (2) to determine if possible whether, in hunter-gatherer contexts, food, equipment, or raw material likely would have been stored in such cache pits; (3) to report a group of rock-lined cache pits discovered in excavations at Indian Hill Rockshelter in southeastern California; (4) to review the reported occurrence of similar features elsewhere from the California deserts; and (5) to compare and contrast the use of rock-lined cache pits in the California deserts with that in Southwestern contexts, primarily on the Colorado Plateau; and (6) to suggest how and why caching technology may have changed over time.