Reconstruction of refuse-filled storage pit.

As is the case today, much Mississippian garbage was either buried or burned. Storage pits often became garbage receptacles. Burned cobs, kernels, and other grass seeds, animal bones, and broken pottery pepper the ash of Mississippian hearths disposed of in nearby pits. Given modern disposal strategies, it seems likely that Mississippian people also discarded refuse in the nearby marshes, sloughs, and streams. The abundance of household debris in borrow pits (created during earth removal for mound construction), makes it clear they were used for just such large-scale refuse disposal. Mississippian people may thus be credited with creating the first sanitary landfill in North America.

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