Food Storage among the Iberians of the Late Iron Age Northwest Mediterranean (ca. 225–50 bc)

Abstract

Storage pits are one of the most common archaeological features of an area that comprises the Catalancoastal region and western Languedoc. Although some of these pits are found in the region from as earlyas the Neolithic period, it is not until the late Iron Age-early Roman period (ca. 225-50 bc) that theybecome pervasive in the archaeological record, and as such the prevailing tendency is to take these foodreserves as an indicator of increased social complexity, as evidence of the ability of the peasantry to producesurplus and as marking the completion of a diachronic process of sedentarisation, all three of which are traditionallylinked more generally to the practice of storage. Consequently, for the most part, this explanationgives a pivotal role to storage, but fails to address storage as an economic process in itself. With these scholarlymisconceptions in mind, I adopt a cross-cultural perspective in order to reconsider the role of storageas a crucial form of evidence for understanding economic structures, localised responses and the landscape.In connection with this, I suggest that the storage pits' function-to protect production from human (e.g.thieving) and natural threats-is an aspect of fundamental importance for any attempt to explain socialand cultural changes in Iberia from the beginning of Roman colonisation.