Ritual practices in pits excavated in domestic areas during the Third Millennium BC in the South of the Iberian Peninsula and some Andean analogies

Abstract

Excavated pit fields have traditionally been assigned to storage pits fields since Siret’s first studies in the southeast and Bonsor in the Iberian Southwest. Due to its enormous abundance, given the great surface of the site, in Valencina de la Concepción (Seville) some authors have considered the reflection of the accumulation of large surpluses from tribute. However, in the South of the Iberian Peninsula there are few structures where seeds have been identified, and many times, due to the abundance of these structures, they have not been the object of detailed attention in the excavation reports either. Other proposed alternatives have been its use to store hay for livestock, compost to fertilize the fields, pit-dwelling, cisterns for water storage or have a ritual character due to the presence of idols in wells or complete animals in pits. As an analogy, an Andean ritual practice from the Inca period is valued, which is carried out in the domestic sphere, immediately next to the hut or in the attached outdoor space, on an annual basis, where there is a family banquet celebration and at the end a ritual pit is dug where they deposit household offerings, fragmented pottery, portions of animal bones, cereal such as corn, etc, since the liquid spills do not leave evidence. This annual pit, although it has a surface marker, sometimes is lost, which then requires digging a new one and ends up causing a multiplicity of pits or overlaps of them in the immediate spaces of the huts over the years.