Pithouse
Replica pithouse in the Youth Garden, December 2021
This replica dwelling, which archeologists call a pithouse, is based on one that Allen Denoyer of Archeology Southwest helped excavate within the Mission Garden portion of the Clearwater site in 2008. Archeologists undertook work at the site prior to construction of the new Mission Garden.
Archaeologist Allen Denoyer at Mission Garden site in 2008 mapping the large pit structure upon which this replica is based (Photo: Homer Thiel)
In 2017-2018, with Allen’s guidance and direction, middle school and high school students of Quest for Education and Arts built this replica. With digging sticks and baskets to carry soil, they worked many weeks digging, sweating and laughing to create the pit you see here. The students replicated the ancient Cienega Phase structure with cottonwood for the support posts, and arrowweed boughs for thatching.
Camilla Johnson, Allen Denoyer, and students of Quest for Education and Arts building the pithouse (Photo: Sandy Nelson)
People lived at this site from about 4,100 years ago to the 1950s. During the Early Agricultural period (approximately 2100 BC to AD 50), people were living here in small brush huts. They grew some of the earliest maize found in the U.S. Southwest.
Student building pithouse (Photo: Sandy Nelson)
The Cienega phase of the Early Agricultural period dates from about 800 B.C. to A.D. 50. This pithouse is a replica from that period, when people were living in cluster of dwellings that also served as storage houses, and digging small canals to irrigate their fields.
This structure’s ancient counterpart was radiocarbon dated to sometime between 2,200 and 2,400 years ago. It was about 15 feet in diameter with a burned patch on the floor indicating where people had a fire hearth. The walls were formed by 40 saplings placed in holes around the inside edge of the pit. These were bent to create a domed roof. Another large posthole north of the hearth may have helped hold the roof as it sagged with age.
Kids of all ages can enter the pithouse and get a feel for what life was like for ancient inhabitants of the Tucson basin
East of the hearth, an upright stone ‘pillar’ protruded about 20 inches above the floor. The top of the cylindrical stone had been altered, but archeologists are not sure of its function. A similar structure with a pillar was found on top of Tumamoc Hill, and it dated to about the same period.
Artifacts found on the floor included a netherstone (bottom grinding slab), a mano (hand held grinding stone), a stone chopper, and some leftover pieces of stone from tool-making. Archeologists also found charred pieces of maize.
The ancient pithouse may have been used as a dwelling, but it was larger than most houses of its time, suggesting it may have served a special purpose.
In the pithouse students of all ages can explore and re-enact life at the base of Sentinel Peak.
