pithouse
- noun
- /ˈpɪthaʊs/
- Specialized
:
casa cueva
- Archaeologists discovered several pithouses that date back to early human settlements in the region.
Examples
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Pithouses, consisting of a pit laboriously dug with a stick and by hand in the heavy clay soil and roofed over by a mixture of clay and wood, were constructed on the Mesa Verde, which was relatively flat.
Academic text (1996) -
Around A.D. 1000, these people moved out of rock shelters and partially buried pithouses and into multiroom masonry dwellings, developing the culture now popularly known as Anasazi.
Academic text (2009) -
Desai, Ashwin, and Richard Pithouse. "'What Stank in the Past Is the Present's Perfume'"
Academic text (2018) -
The remnants of a number of these original pithouses exist today in Mesa Verde National Park.
Academic text (1996) -
Entry was by a small opening on one side of the pit, and smoke from fires in the central firepit escaped from the pithouse through a small opening in the crude roof.
Academic text (1996) -
During this time period, the Anasazi altered their housing structures from living "in" the earth (pithouses) to living "on" the earth (interconnected pueblos).
Academic text (1996) -
During the second developmental period, called the Modified Basketmaker Period (450-750 A.D.), the Anasazi moved from the caves and sandstone overhangs to pithouses.
Academic text (1996) -
The ancient tribe built their home in a pithouse, which kept them warm during the winter.
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Visitors can see how the original inhabitants of the area lived in pithouses that were dug into the ground.
Synonyms
4
6.0
A shelter dug into the ground and covered with earth
1
8.6
A shelter dug partly into the ground with a roof to live in or keep animals
A small, simple shelter where people live, often temporary
How Underground
Surface Forms
Morphology
Etymology
The word pithouse is built from pit and house, where pit means 'a hole in the ground' and house means 'a home or shelter'. So a pithouse is literally a 'house in a hole', a shelter dug into the ground to keep people or animals warm and protected.