Abstract
From the Neolithic to the modern era, silo pits are among the most commonly found archaeological structures. Although archaeologists and historians are interested by underground storage, there is few accurate data documenting the management and technical solutions used in the past to preserve the properties of grain stored underground. With the objective to document the technical and biological mechanisms involved in these food storage systems, we have brought together a multidisciplinary team of archaeologists, carpologists, historians, grain storage experts, microbiologists, farmers, millers, and bakers. An underground silage site was created ex-nihilo and grain was stored for one to two years during the four storage campaigns from 2016 to 2019. This experimentation allowed to implement and document the different work steps (digging, use and successive or deferred reuse of silos, maintenance of the grain loading port), to observe the taphonomy of the structures after abandonment and then to characterize the general state of the grain stock and the sanitary and technological quality of the grains offloaded from silos. The methodology employed is described and the first data collected are discussed, bringing new insights into the interpretation of these structures during archaeological excavations.