Student Award 2025

Daniel Alonso-Naranjo 

The pit site paradox: Perspectives on grain storage and the state in Egypt from the Neolithic to the Old Kingdom

Daniel Alonso Naranjo. Courtesy Daniel Alonso Naranjo

Inequality, social control, and the centralisation of power are central questions in archaeological research, especially related to the emergence and institutionalisation of hierarchical and bureaucratised social structures, such as administrative states. Valued or exotic materials and surplus food are a key element of these social and economic processes, with the storage of perishables a key problem

In his paper “The pit site paradox: Perspectives on grain storage and the state in Egypt from the Neolithic to the Old Kingdom”, Daniel Alonso-Naranjo approaches these questions through an examination of pit sites—groups of pits assumed to be granaries—and other grain storage practices in Egypt from the Neolithic to the Old Kingdom periods. He sets out to test the “pit site paradox”, that is that as centralised social control increases, local management of surpluses decreases, and fewer pit sites are constructed.

Alonso-Naranjo first draws out a discussion of pits as grain storage infrastructure, and the development of pit sites, using material and sites from across European prehistory as examples. He draws out the ways that concentrations of pit storage can be strategies by local communities to protect or conceal surplus grain from central authorities keen to take possession of or tax these surpluses.

Alonso-Naranjo next systematically examines grain storage technologies and infrastructure in Egypt from the Neolithic through to the Old Kingdom. He finds that pits predominated in earlier periods, with large concentrations around key oases likely linked to seasonally mobile lifestyles. During the Pre- and Proto-dynastic period, silos slowly replace pits in Upper Egypt, perhaps linked to the political and economic importance of breweries, while pit complexes persist much longer in Lower Egypt. Domestic communal grain storage continued through the Early Dynastic period and into the Old Kingdom, but was accompanied by large-scale storage galleries associated with palaces, workers’ settlements, and temples.

Alonso-Naranjo concludes by noting that while pit storage complexes continued to be built into the Old Kingdom, in all periods they were consistently associated with smallholding farmers and nomadic lifestyles. Meanwhile silos, a more accessible and visible storage technology, became established across Egypt in the Early Dynastic period, alongside the rise of the administrative state. Although he notes the data are far from complete, this study offers evidence to support the idea that the diminution of pit sites may be one line of evidence to track the emergence of states in the ancient world.

We congratulate Daniel Alonso-Naranjo and look forward to the publication of his paper.