Identifies a new type of hearth at the start of the Mesolithic, apparently designed for food processing. Over 100 deep shaftlike pits are known from a Mesolithic landscape under peat; these pits showed evidence of a smoldering fire at the base, mainly for roasting hazelnuts (to improve taste and preserve them) but probably also for smoking and drying foodstuffs. This special and efficient construction, and the use of pine as firewood, continued over thousands of years.