Earth Oven

An earth oven, also called a ground oven or cooking pit, is one of the simplest and most ancient cooking structures; the earliest known example was discovered in Central Europe and dated to 29,000 BC. At its most basic, an earth oven is a pit in the ground used to trap heat and bake, smoke or steam food, and the presence of such cooking pits is a key sign of human settlement often sought by archaeologists. Earth ovens have been used across many places and cultures historically and remain a common tool today for cooking large quantities of food where no equipment is available, particularly in the Pacific region.