Why Did the Early Israelites Dig All Those Pits?

At almost every Iron Age I (1200–1000 B.C.) site where the early Israelites settled, archaeologists have found an extraordinary number of pits.

In Biblical terms, Iron Age I is the period of the Judges, when, as the Bible tells us, “every man did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25). King David came to the throne at the beginning of the next archaeological period (Iron Age II), in about 1000 B.C.