These features have dirt that is darker than the surrounding dirt. Pits were usually dug so that people would have a place to store food or throw away their trash. Whereas postholes are stains left in the soil when a hole was dug to put in a post. Often, a pattern of postholes shows the outline of a house or other building. Both prehistoric and historic sites have pits and postholes.
Features provide valuable clues to how people lived at a site.
Features are often difficult to identify and can only be useful with careful excavation. Once the artifacts are excavated they are taken to an archaeological laboratory. At this time the work of an archaeologist has just begun. The first step is to clean the artifacts. Sometimes artifacts are very fragile and must be handled carefully.