This wall profile also shows two basin-shaped pit features. Each of which contained FCR and bright red layers of burned soil which indicate that these were not a smudge pits but rather some kind of cooking pits. Finally, a post mold is revealed beneath the lower midden layer. Other large post molds like this one have been found in other units, and those that show clearly in the wall profiles appear to penetrate the lower midden and thus post-date its accumulation.
It is yet too early to say much about what these stratigraphic layers represent. It does appear, however, that the lower, dark midden was the result of much cooking, burning, butchering, and the smoking of hides (see previous post). All of these activities must be responsible for the dense scatter of charcoal, ash, animal bone, and burned-earth soil lenses which make of this midden. In contrast, the upper midden may represent habitation debris that was dumped here as the result of activities somewhere else on the site. The pits which extend into the subsoil appear to have been dug at the time that the lower midden was accumulating, since they contain the same dark fill. The post molds resulted from the construction of structures at some later date, perhaps even after the Late Archaic occupation.
