Northeast Subsistence-Settlement Change: A.D. 700 –1300

immediate surroundings of the longhouse may have
been kept clean, with garbage deposited at some distance
from the house. It is also clear that some of the
storage pits that dot the area saw their final use as
garbage receptacles. A relatively deep swale located to
the south of the longhouse and a shallower one to the
north would have provided excellent natural and easily
accessible locations for garbage disposal.
Excavations at the Late Prehistoric Boland site in the
lower Chenango Valley documented the use of lowlying
areas located away from structures as middens
(Prezzano 1992).
Examination of the distributions of features in the
vicinity of Structure 1 suggests several interesting patterns.
The most striking feature is the high density of
features in the eastern third of the longhouse. The
packing and occasional overlapping of features within
the walls of the original portion of the house may simply
reflect the longer use of this portion of the house.
Alternatively, the eastern end of the longhouse may
have been marked as storage space (see Miroff 2000 for
a similar argument for Structure 2). This concentration
of storage facilities in a segment of the longhouse may
reflect household control over agricultural surplus.
A second pattern is the location of features both
within and outside of the longhouse walls in roughly
equal frequencies. I have argued elsewhere that this
may reflect seasonal shifts in the location of activity
areas, particularly cooking tasks (Knapp 1996). Open
air hearth and earth oven cooking may have been
favored during warm seasons, while these activities
are more likely to occur indoors in the winter. While a
large number of in-ground storage facilities are located
within the eastern portion of the longhouse, a cluster of
features also occurs immediately to the south of the
longhouse. These outdoor storage pits may have
stocked surpluses intended for use during milder
months. Some features and their associated activities
may have been so unpleasant that residents located
these features at greater distances from the longhouse.
One feature identified as a smudge pit is located well
to the north of the longhouse, thereby removing this
excessively smoky activity from the immediate proximity
of the longhouse.
The spatial organization of the Broome Tech site is
strikingly different. Although a number of post molds
are associated with the Late Prehistoric occupation, no
structures are clearly apparent (Figure 9.12). Locations
Figure 9.12. Organization of space during the Late Prehistoric occupation of Broome Tech.
186 Knapp