Dr.

Anjali Sharma, Assistant Professor, Architecture Department

National Institute of Technology Patna
Permanent buildings – derived from earlier temporary shelter.

Single-celled: Beehive-
shaped, round or oval in plan
Two types
Multi-celled: Collection of
rectangular rooms
 In most regions, evolution was from:
Semi- Apsidal houses in Rectangular
subterranean mud or stone houses in tauf &
drystone huts straw
Early Neolithic period, 7500-6000 BC, was marked by a change
from round to rectangular buildings built of mud.
Development of moulded mud-bricks encouraged precision of
construction and the use of features such as external buttresses.

Apsidal: A projected part of a building – semi-circular in plan and vaulted.

Tauf: Loaf shaped bricks made of mud and straw.
Buttresses: A structure of stone or brick built against a wall to strengthen of support it
Derives from houses of similar size superimposed one above the
other.
Constructed of mud and rebuilt by each generation
The earlier buildings being absorbed into settlement mounds of
tells.
Early tells did not have palaces, rich houses or non-residential
buildings
In ancient Near-East, 8000-6000 BC,
Small communities were composed of single-roomed houses
with flat roofs
Built of mud and stone
With walls and floors buttresses and mud plastered internally
Painted in a variety of earthen colours.
Villages consisted of:
Contiguous – in contact,
Access by way of roof
Some villages had narrow alleys and courtyards
Architecture was usually limited to fortification-walls within
which settlements were housed, as at Jericho, on to stone
pavements as at Munhata
Except Catal Huyuk, where large number of elaborate shrines
were found.
During Neolithic period, the character of these simple villages
changed four ways:
Through improvements in construction and planning-resulting in
multi-roomed, thin-walled houses of mud bricks. At first, specialized
buildings were contiguous to houses later, they were free-standing.
Through the emergence of non-residential buildings for work,
storage, and ritual purposes – occasionally temples or storage blocks
were grouped around three sides of a courtyard.
Through more open forms of village layouts, including streets.
Through the more widespread construction of walls for many
purposes, including defence.
Storage buildings:
Rectangular rooms on either side of a central corridor
Shrines:
Planned with rooms in sequence and occasionally followed a
megaron-like plan
These tended towards rectangular and symmetrical layouts.
Most striking monument of Neolithic period in the ancient Near-East were the
temples of the Ubaid:
Rectangular mud brick buildings.
Erected on platforms of clay or imported stone
Fore-runners of the Sumerian ziggurats
As in houses, a central rectangular chamber was flanked on the long sides by
small cells.
These chambers were larger and more elaborately decorated than those in the
houses.
A flight of stairs led to a room with a broad platform on one end and a table or
small alter at the other
Ladders in small rooms give access to an upper floor
Buttresses were designed to articulate patterns of light and shade
Terracotta scale models appear to have been used as aids to design
Late temples had friezes decorated with coloured ceramic cones and bitumen
In Egyptian transition to rectangular, mid-built town houses took place at the
end of Mesolithic period:
Constructed of wattle and daub – composite building material used for
making walls in which woven lattice of wooden strips called wattle is
daubed with sticky material usually made of some combination of wet soil,
clay, sand, animal dung and straw - occasionally on rough stone
foundations.
Houses were two-roomed with walled open courts adjoining the streets.
Graves became increasingly elaborate
50 drystone huts at an open site of 2000 sq. mt.
Mostly circular, semi-subterranean and rock-lined
3m to 9m in diameter
Beehive forms were constructed of reeds or matting and were probably
supported on posts.
Huts dug into the ground to a depth of about 1.3 m or 4 feet.
Entrance located on the lower side
Some huts had stone paved floors
One had walls furnished with lime plaster painted with red ochre, earthen
material from yellow to brownish red colour)
Population of about 200-300.
Aceramic Neolithic period
Round houses 3m to 8m in diameter
About 1000 houses
Approached by a stone-paved road
Lower parts of walls – made of local limestone
Domed upper structure of pise’ – rammed earthen blocks or mud bricks
Some houses had double walls – outer leaf acting as retaining wall
Some had lofts supported on stone pillars and a number of outbuildings
used for grinding corn, storage, cooking and workshops.
Most houses gave into walled courtyards.
Early pre-pottery Neolithic period
architecture, primarily domestic
Ceramic Neolithic period Anatolian
and Mesopotamian architecture
became more significant
Aceramic Neolithic period
Round and oval houses in Jericho evolved from drystone houses in the
earliest Neolithic period
Built of loaf-shaped mud-bricks with indentation on the convex face to give
a key to the clay mortar
The bricks supported domed structures of branches covered with clay.
Pre-pottery Neolithic overlap
Built over round and oval houses underneath
Encircled by a stone wall 3m/10 ft thick, 4m/13 ft high and 700m/2300 ft in
circumference
Underwent complex sequence of rebuilding
Erection of cisterns and storage chambers with roof entry set against the base of an
apsidal watch tower.
Houses of cigar shaped mud-bricks
Solid walls
Wide doorways
Rounded jambs
Some had stone foundation
Some may have had upper floors made of timber
Houses closely packed but intercommunicated through screen walls and courtyards
Highly burnished – treatment of metal/leather/pottery to make it smooth & shiny by rubbing it – lime plaster
floors laid on gravel and stained red, pink or orange
Plastered walls with red-painted dados or sometimes decorated with geometric designs.
First huts were curvilinear, semi-subterranean
Upto 4m in diameter
Grouped in clusters within walled courtyards
Entire village surrounded by a stone wall
Later – free standing polygonal houses with rounded corners
Followed by rectangular stone houses
Finally clusters of stone –built houses and workshops
Each house had one room of 7mX9m or 23’X30’
With floors and walls of white burnished plaster decorated with red
stripes at floor level
Outside was an L-shaped, walled courtyard and each had several
workshops about 8m/26’ long, clustered together
 Bandelier multi story dwelling
Rincon Beach, Puerto Rico

Majishan in Tianshui, Gansu province, northwest China

Goreme, cave city, Cappadocia, Turkey

Matera, region of Basilicata, in Southern Italy

Ancient settlement in Nepal caves

Ancient cave dwelling settlement site in Beijing,China

 Mogao Caves, China - caves of a
Thousand Buddhas

Għar Dalam Cave, Malta

Khndzoresk, Armenia
Kandovan, Iran
Ellora caves, India

Otuzco Caves – Peru

Uplistsikhe, Georgia Giant Fengxian Caves, Henan, China

Cave cities, Cappadocia, Turkey
Cappadocia, Turkey - famous for its underground cities—
most notable: Derinkuyu.
Had 7 underground levels and population in thousands
Not a small city and it was not a series of small cave
homes either
Had markets, shops, schools, workshops etc.
These were perhaps hiding places for Christians avoiding
persecution from the Roman Empire
Other cave cities in Cappadocia: Goreme, Zelve,
Kayamakli, Derinkuyu
BHIMBETKA ROCK SHELTERS, 30000 BCE
BHIMBETKA
 CAVES IN INDIA

Badami Caves Udayagiri Caves

Ellora Caves

Bhaje Caves Ellora Caves

Kottukal Cave Temple Bhaje caves, Pune Ajanta Caves

AJANTA CAVE PAINTINGS
Ancient Cliff Dwelling in New Mexico

Bandiagara Cliff Dwelling in Mali

CLIFF DWELLING IN TIBET

Otuzco Caves – Peru

Cappadocia, Turkey Ancient dwellings and temples in cliff face Aegean Coast Turkey
Neolithic settlement of Skara Brae in Scotland called “the doughnut holes” Existed during 3180-2500 BCE
A cluster of ten half-buried
stone-built houses, linked by
low, narrow, covered
passageways
Houses consist of a single large
room and a number of stone-
built furnishings, including beds,
closets, dressers, seats etc.
A sophisticated sewer
system connected the houses,
each with a primitive toilet
Sunk into mounds of
middens (pre-existing
prehistoric domestic waste) for
stability & insulation
One house was divided into small
cubicles - possibly a tool-
making workshop (bone
needles or flint axes). Stand-
alone structure without
midden, above ground with
walls over 2 metres (6.6 ft) thick
and a "porch" protecting the
entrance.
 A SUBTERRANEAN HOUSE

A TYPICAL PIT HOUSE

KHIROKITIA,
CYPRUS
Prehistoric Ireland (4000–2500 BC)

Mesolithic hut made

of animal skin.

Primitive huts of
Phrygians
 NEOLITHIC DWELLINGS

Mezhirich, Ukraine mammoth bone houses

Inuit Homes Made of Ice

A closer view of the Togu-na showing the wall

Iron Age Settlement in Scotland Rakhigarhi, India decorations and an ancient wood carving