My mention of the trap door was in response to someone who
          asked about how might a small hole or cellar be
          placed so it would not be noticed.
 
          I have been following this discussion with interest because
          we are currently conducting a dig under the kitchen floor of
          an old house.  The old potential crawl space under the
          floor has lots of artifacts as would be expected in a
          kitchen midden and a few treasures as might have been
          hidden.  Since this crawl space was completely surrounded
          with a stone foundation, we do not know how the artifacts
          got into the space, except perhaps via a floor door.
 
          Beneath the first floor, the house is shaped as shown below
          ______________________________
          |               | dirt filled|-|
          |    basement   |   xx       | <----  kitchen area
          |               |to joists   |-|
          |    area       |------------|
          |               |
          |               |      N-->
          |_______________|
 
          The dig is in the xx area directly below the kitchen floor.
          There is a large cooking fireplace at the north end of the
          kitchen.  We are finding lots of artifacts in a space about
          30" deep below the floor and many artifacts seem to be near
          the center of the kitchen floor.  As the discussion of small
          cellars or tater holes continued, I began to wonder if folks
          ever used floor doors in the kitchen to access the crawl
          space (in our case, now filled with loose dirt and
          artifacts) for purposes of discarding trash or floor
          sweepings, or hiding personal valuables.  Any thoughts would
          be appreciated.
 
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