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Just for fun: What was a fogou used for?

🕑 Added 2021-08-03 18:51:23 +0000 UTC

Comments

Greg Haley

They were constructed as part of a conspiracy to confuse archeologists in the distant future, and thus ensure the perpetuation of a very peculiar celtic sense of humour.

David Haapala

General Purpose. A little ritual, a little storage, children's games, maybe a temporary jail. I think while it may have been purpose-built originally, over time it became whatever was useful and was used for more than one thing at a time.

Linda-Teresa Merwood

Multi-purpose community assembly venue. Including religious purposes, but also everything from moots to however they let their hair down. I can imagine a bunch people hanging out in a fogou for the prehistoric equivalent of a great night out. The little kids could be tucked up the the other side of a creep hole.

Julie Freeman

cheese cave

Julie Freeman

Wine cellar

Mika

Darkrooms for the local photographers

William T Ross

All the above

Jude Edling

They look like storm shelters provided the opening could be blocked and water kept out. Here in the Midwest USA, tornado shelters, actually storm cellars, doubled as food storage cellars.

Pia Fredfeldt

🤣🤣🤣

Ian Smith

Shelter from the Cornish climate, which can be wet and windy at any time of year. I am no expert on climate history, I assume that protruding out into the Northern Atlantic has always exposed far west Cornwall to the elements. I do not think there is a definitive answer other than ‘all of the above’. Once a fogou was built for any given purpose(s) I am sure other uses developed over time. It will be interesting to see what the archeologists find – just down to good old-fashioned trowel work.

Paul

No doubt all of the above, plus just looks like a nice quiet place to relax and hang out.

Jill Leslie

prupose of fogous - Getting away from the relatives

Christina

Lol

Vicki Jackson

UnitedStates. I've often wandered what the Romans would think of London today

Scot AnSgeulaiche

I think you are on the mark there. That's ONE type of ceremony, still celebrated in some places in the world within a similar chamber. We might now call it "rite of passage".

Scot AnSgeulaiche

How perceptive of you! See my comment elsewhere.

Scot AnSgeulaiche

Cross cultural comparison tells us that many societies made fogous. In each place they are used for ritual purposes. The easiest descriptive word today would be "church". That is, a multifunctional spiritual building. Yes they often contain burials, but they are not graves. As to food storage as a suggested use, I'd like to see an explanation as to what foods could be stored in a damp hole in the ground. I am not aware of any tuberous vegetables native to the UK that were harvested in any quantity worthy of a huge storage. Smoking, dehydrating and in some places salting make up the long term storage solutions in the British Isles.

Dorothy Frank

They look cool in summer, and sheltered. Possibly hidden and easily defended. A place to hide for short duration.

Kay Theriault

I'd guess a fogou was used like a root cellar or cold storage that saw usage in various forms from ancient times to the late 19th -- early 20th centuries when the advent of iceboxes and freon-based refrigeration developed.

Simone Fritzen

Maybe for stuff which belonged to the community, not private use. @Shelter: They had kinda "houses", so they were protected from "standard poor weather" like rain and snow. But maybe they seeked shelter there when something extraordinary happened, like a really heavy thunder.

Richard Davis

Sorry, pressed the wrong key! I was going to say that the fogous were hiding places where they lurked before springing out on their unfortunate victims. The tradition lasted all the way to the 20th Century, when the very last of the line, appropriately named "Fougasse", died (look him up in Wikipedia!)

Richard Davis

It's not generally known that there were political cartoonists back in the stone age. The fougous were hiding places where they lurked to catch

Jakub Jůzl

It's clearly a mancave to hide from all the worldly responsibilities for a while. Probably filled with racy fertility idols, cool drawings of hunting, beverage mugs, pieces of flint to relax-knapp, tasty dried meat and stuff.

Laura Ann Flynn

Multiple purposes. Hiding from attack, food storage, and perhaps also used for religious purposes when weather was bad?

Laura Randolph

Mystical representation of life/death/rebirth. Used for rebirth ceremonies

Todd Gillespie

Also the first known grottos before Hugh Hefner made them famous…

Todd Gillespie

Shelter from sever weather and defense

Anna Anderson

Possibly any and all of those purposes, and as Jonathan says, changing over time. Although Dagmar's idea about fermenting may have been a constant ;).

John Beaumont

Air raid shelter, protection from those pesky Romans and their trebuchet!

Judy DeRose

I find the opening to be much like a vagina in shape, could it be they are trying to go back into the womb for some religious purpose?

Judy DeRose

How about a men's club? or women's club? For use in certain seasons.

Gabriele Sarter

Well, as most of you I think of a food storage. Safe and cold and the food near to its use

Alana Tolstad

I believe the underground spaces were tied to the lore of the gods, mystical places for communication with them. Hmm, will there be evidence of decoration I wonder? We'll soon find out!

Mark Cooke

No we have garages but most not used for cars

Mark Schippel

I am inclined to believe it was used to store food. But that doesn't mean it couldn't be used as a storm shelter or protection from attack if needed.

Dagmar Brugger

fermenting cellar?

Dagmar Brugger

That's my guess!!

Jonathan Day

I think it changed purpose over time. The sealed off passages will presumably be less "cleaned out" than the main section and might say something about earlier uses. Yes, I'm always greedy for more knowledge but I very reluctantly concede there's a limit. Just pretty please keep pushing that limit.

Matthew Adams

These are constructed after the advent of farming, though; and things have changed dramatically in the intensity of effort required, resource competition and land use, by that time. I think we'd find a lot more in common with Iron Age pressures of life, than we would the Mesolithic, when we probably did have more time (and need) to watch the world. :)

Joy Davies

Growing mushrooms?

Hatty Burrow

Keeping the kids and older relatives quiet

Philip Stack

The Iron Age equivalent of today’s ‘must have’ - the garden office

Simon Beal

Sin bin?

Kenneth Brawn

As in Eastern Europe / Russia / China, etc. today, they are used for the storage of food during the winter. No such things as freezers then.

Gill Palmer

Definitely Mums who needed some time out, a nice, quiet fogou.

Mark Bousfield

Prison... throw people in there and stand at the entrance with a big sharp pointy thing and look smug. But honestly, I'm drawing a blank...

Douglas Peterson

Other......... "we have one and you don't" You have to be upscale to have a fogou!

Erik Jonsson

I think fogous was used as collective burial chambers. Chambers of the dead, where the living sometimes returned to ritually honor their ancestors. Perhaps the remains also were taken out of the fogou on special occasions, for example during the midsummer solstice, and then put back.

Ruth Mastron

Ritual. That's Time-Teamese for "not a flipping clue".

Carl Christy

I am going to vote for all of the above (including beer) with the exception of refuge from attack. If an attacker found folks hiding there it would be simple matter to block the entrance and trap everyone inside.

Robert Boudreau

I don't see them being defensible, there never seems to be a way to close them off, to secure the entrance. Attackers could get in just as easy as the occupants. Nor would they need to be built as long and complex as some are, which serves no defensive purpose. I don't see them being food storage either, a much simpler root cellar would suffice, and be easier to build. There's never been any evidence of storage containers or shelving, anything that would point to a storage use that I'm aware of. The fact that they're more temperature constant is the only thing that suggest it as a possibility, I don't think that's enough. A ritual space is the only thing that would explain the expense in labor and the overall layout. Whether funeral rituals or season celebrations or otherwise is anyone's guess. It may not have even been built for the use of the builders, it may have been some kind of offering, a home for a local deity or similar.

Anne Holley-Hime

If the fogou wasn’t too damp, then it would be a good place to keep their wood stores. Hazel rods would probably stay somewhat flexible.

Dire

Cornwall was obviously where all those giants of British / Irish folklore went on golf vacations. Stands to reason, doesn't it? 🧐🤣

Terri

I would hide in a fogou if pursued but that's the only thing that would send me down there! Yikes!!!

Pat Szastkiw

Beer cooler, obviously, and cheese aging, and growing mushrooms.

B Grant

Weapons store, food for retreat / seige

Tamra Prior

I would say all of the above, but possibly also shelter from extreme weather? Underground dwellings are more consistent in temperature. I don't know if the weather got very hot back then, though perhaps a few days a year. And it might be easier to keep warm in winter than an above ground building.

Jo Wilson

Quarantine during Iron Age lockdowns.

Lesley K Spivey

All of the above.

Richard Kaskeski

I believe it was a multi purpose structure ,food storage ,safety from attack and safety from storms.

Susan Given

All of the above

Don Cook

Root cellar ... that's all i'll go for; and wait for the archaeology to tell us what it is, as usual....

Ari Wick

I am of the opinion that Fogous were multi-purpose, safe, cool, and defensible structures used for a variety of purposes. If we compare a Fogou to a cool dark room or cellar in modern times (yes crude but bear with me), it could be used for cool storage, as shelter for humans or animals during inclement weather, quiet places for religious ceremonies or personal worship/reflection, and almost certainly subject to the play of adolescents from time to time. Sure, some Fogous seem to be used more exclusively for one purpose or another in certain locales, perhaps during particular seasons, fluctuations in population or unexpected visitors, moments in time of civil unrest, or in accordance with familial or communal preferences. But, if we view the purpose of Fogous as a whole from the perspective of a kaleidoscope, it is easier to see how they served essentially as multi-purpose rooms, and better marries the wide variety of evidence produced in prior study.

John Kjellberg

To store the dead until they can get buried at the proper festivity. In northern Sweden they had (until recently) special sheds where they put the dead until the ground thawed in spring. They where called stacking sheds (stappelboa).

Klaasjan Schuuring

For sheltering livestock from predators at night.

Richard Abbott

Obviously ritual .... (aka could be anything really)

William Tinney

I wonder if seed stocks in particular may not have been stored in them, not only for preservation from decay and rodents, but also for despotic control by those in the ruling class/es in the hierarchical social system of the time. Such control might protect seed stocks also from being raided in seasonal periods of scarcity. Perhaps also certain valuable (metal) tools, regalia, and ritual items -- a kind of vault perhaps.

Magnus Wake

Hunting over night harbour. A bit like a bothie

Toby Martin

I concur, all of the above, including just plain old shelter.

Nikki Newman

probably all of the above plus some purpose that is totally beyond our comprehension.

Erica Griffith

I think all of the above dependent on circumstances.

Joanie Berkwitz

Both food storage and shelter from attack, shelter from bad weather also. Perhaps originally ritual or community based, but they probably served more than one purpose.

Christopher Samuel

Chalk me up as "other" - where "other" is "all of the above". :-)

Nina Gadsdon

The one at Chysauster wouldn’t have been big enough or the entrance concealed enough to provide much shelter from attack. But that doesn’t rule out some kind of ritual purpose, a lot of work went into making them.

Robyn Cuskelly

To keep out of the weather - seriously, have you experienced how cold and windy Cornwall can get?!

That idiot Chris

For making fougasse

Mark Freestone

Keeping beers cold

Alvaro Cuenca

Maybe a little bit of all three and some more. I think we really underestimate what we did back then

Elizabeth Nickless

I don't think they have found any food detritus or pottery in them have they?? ...Maybe they stored water in leather bags in them??

Rick Garrett

I think they were likely multipurpose given the work involved in the construction. I would guess both for storage and refuge.

Eggs Ackley

They certainly do provide a mystery. Could a microscopic analysis of the existing soil dispel the food storage theory?

Euan Fyfe

Somewhere to be away from the kids.

Julia Garlick

Man cave😊

Lyn Howe

No one really knows.

William F. Campbell

How can we test the assumption that the alternatives are mutually exclusive?

Jason Lovatt

I don't think they really know as yet what they was used for but from list above any of those seem plausible

Beth

Clearly, fugous were used to store pufferfish sushi.

Beth

Extreme Hide and Seek.

Graham Thorn

Likely to have been primarily for practical use, food storage, a refuge and a quiet alone space.

Donna Oglesby

I think they were use for all of the above, Storage of food, since under ground it is cooler and would preserve food longer, for shelter, for safety as well as for religious..

Paula ODonnell

Haha

Elizabeth L. Morgan

Man cave? LOL. Sorry, couldn't resist!

Thomas E Small

I think its a combination of all of the above. Since we know next to nothing about their religious beliefs its all conjecture.

Martha Berryman

Given the sheer herculean amount of labor, with or without ancient cranes or equipment, and the number of people involved to locate, excavate and assemble a fogous, it must have been mightily significant to its community. Especially significant is the circular destination "room" with architecturally exact tall walls, dome (long before later church vaults/domes) --and that high-arched top of a View to the Sky? What is the time in construction--is there dating evidence if fogous took years or decades? And most poignant and mysterious is the frequency of a central huge slab/stone. Built for a ritual of the community or for some edification of a single individual? But how can we Moderns EVER imagine our minds and lives back to the days of thousands of years earlier.

Martha Berryman

Absolutely! "We should seek to avoid making the mistake of assuming our experience of the world always applies in the past because things have not always been as they are now." Our brains, our motives, our imaginations, such things as belief in Secular Progress, and lives of busy, busy focus on "more" or "faster". What about a time when we humans just WATCHED the world?

Daniel Defoe

Ever have a clubhouse as a kid? Hey, you use the materials at hand, right?

Vincent Russett

This looks to me like the artificially cooled buildings erected to store cheese and other food. Storing and making the most of what would have been a seasonal glut of dairy products would have been important: is it possible to make lipid or aDNA studies that will establish this? I know that (for example) Cheddar cheese was stored in caves in Cheddar Gorge, (as was and still is, beer). Are your fougou users cheesemongers?

Tim Van Leeuwen

Phil’s secret napping spot…

Lynn Edwards

Creep passage used for special food storage (restricted opening), main part used for ceremonial or formal meetings (which could have included eating some of the stored special foods).

April Keene

A quiet place to meditate with the mind altering substance du jour.

Laura Soto-Barra

Several purposes. Shelter when needed, storage for specific foods and times, space for times when someone important is sick and dies, before putting body in a grave, a mourning space. ,

Paul Gleeson

I doubt they would have had an exclusive use, so all three as the need arose

Elayne Bines

Ritual, most of them drip water so not for food. The creeps, stumble stones and projections from the ceilings all add a ritualistic feel.

Clive Hobbs

The actual usage is not clear, must be ritual. Always is, ask Francis!

Michael Schneider

To keep the ale chilled!!!!

Terry Cox

We should seek to avoid making the mistake of assuming our experience of the world always applies in the past because things have not always been as they are now. It is possible that some underground structures were constructed as bunkers because things were more regularly falling out of the sky at that time. Recent experience shows us that small changes in climate can result in hailstones the size of tennis balls and we know that there have been periods in which meteorite activity is more common.

Ann H

A riddle planted for future archaeologists or a cold cellar for butter and meat storage

Ward

Shelter from incessant high winds and inclement weather common to Cornwall.

Richard Vine

OK, just for fun.... built to either hide from alien attack or like the pyramids they focus the earth's energy and can sharpen blades..... I am glad I don't believe what I write!!

John Gill

Both for food storage and shelter from attach

Steven Craighead

Place to eat fugu.

Jennifer Hess

Temperature controlled environment protected from scavengers. That much effort at a community level must have been for food storage.

Steven Craighead

Upstairs vs Downstairs. Downstairs in foggy.

Paul Tomblin

Man Cave. Where else would you chill out and play video games and watch sports?

Ray Roberts

Avoid the Tribal chief's tax collector...

Steven Craighead

Nuclear Fallout shelter

Robert Wise

Multiple uses, with change over time possible. So, food storage in containers is a possible use, and perhaps rituals and initiation rites are another? I wonder if the shape of the entry trench being a reverse "J" is a hint about the main use? Perhaps that 180° bend in the entry trench has to do with keeping light out?

Sherry Cartmill

Storage and shelter. Not sure about a ritual practice area.

Matthew Adams

I also tend towards "all of the above". With a healthy dash of "they've got a fogou; we want one too"

Carole Cox

The temps stay constant underground. Practical everyday shelter?

Craig O’Malley

Probably to store food, Bet they were multipurpose though. Iron Age man-cave shed.

Jon Colcord

Toilet.

Dinah from Kabalor

womb/rebirth related rituals. And possibly food storage and beer making.

Donna Holt

Where else are you going to put the iron age stew and paleo bread?

Barry Sterry

All the above!

Paul Bivand

All of the above (including beer)

David Hazel

My guess would be some kind of funerary practice, or maybe even a burial chamber, like a passage grave. That is, not 'ritual' or 'religious' in the hand-waving sense, but of a more practical purpose.