Burzahom translates to ‘place of birch’ in Kashmiri. Remains found during the excavations tell of how the birch tree must have been common to this terrain during the Stone Age. People, as pointed earlier, lived in subterranean pits, mostly oval or circular in shape and as deep as four metres, their walls plastered with mud for strength and durability. Signs of ladders and steps leading down to the floor were discovered in deeper pits. With time, they got shallower with the later pits only about three to five centimetres deep.