Occasional caves and temporary tents

Early humans are often thought of as dwelling in caves, largely because that is where we find
traces of them. The flints they used, the bones they gnawed, even their own bones - these lurk
for ever in a cave but get scattered or demolished elsewhere.
Caves are winter shelter. On a summer's day, which of us chooses to remain inside? The
resonse of our ancestors seems to have been the same. !ut living outside, with the freedom to
roam widely for the uroses of hunting and gathering, suggests the need for at least a
temorary shelter. "nd this, even at the simlest level, means the beginning of something
aroaching architecture.

Confronted with the need for a shelter against sun or rain, the natural instinct is to lean some
form of rotective shield against a suort - a leafy branch, for e#amle, against the trunk of a
tree.
$f there is no tree trunk available, the branches can be leant against each other, creating the
inverted %-shae of a natural tent. The bottom of each branch will need some suort to hold it
firm on the ground. &aybe a ring of stones. 'hen ne#t in the district, it makes sense to return to
the same encamment. The simle foundations will have remained in lace, and erhas some
of the suerstructure too. This can be (uickly reaired.

The first reliable traces of human dwellings, found from as early as )*,*** years ago, follow
recisely these logical rinciles. There is often a circular or oval ring of stones, with evidence
of local materials being used for a tent-like roof.
+uch materials may be reeds daubed with mud in wet areas, or, in the oen lains, mammoth
bones and tusks lashed together to suort a covering of hides. " good e#amle of such an
encamment, from about -.,*** years ago, has been found at /olni %estonice in eastern
Euroe.
From tents to round houses: 8000 BC
Once human beings settle down to the business of agriculture, instead of hunting and gathering,
ermanent settlements become a factor of life. The story of architecture can begin.
The tent-like structures of earlier times evolve now into round houses. 0ericho is usually (uoted
as the earliest known town. " small settlement here evolves in about 1*** !C into a town
covering 2* acres. "nd the builders of 0ericho have a new technology - bricks, shaed from
mud and baked hard in the sun. $n keeing with a circular tradition, each brick is curved on its
outer edge.

&ost of the round houses in 0ericho consist of a single room, but a few have as many as three -
suggesting the arrival of the social and economic distinctions which have been a feature of all
develoed societies. The floor of each house is e#cavated some way down into the ground,
then both the floor and the brick walls are lastered in mud.
The roof of each room, still in the tent style, is a conical structure of branches and mud 3'wattle
and daub4.

The round tent-like house reaches a more comlete form in 5hirokitia, a settlement of about
6.** !C in Cyrus. &ost of the rooms here have a dome-like roof in corbelled stone or brick.
One ste u from outside, to kee out the rain, leads to several stes down into each room,
seats and storage saces are shaed into the walls, and in at least one house there is a ladder
to an uer sleeing latform.
"nd there is another striking innovation at 5hirokitia. " aved road runs through the village, a
central thoroughfare for the community, with aths leading off to the courtyards around which
the houses are built.

The round house has remained a traditional shae. !uildings very similar to those in 5hirokitia
are still lived in today in arts of southern $taly, where they are known astrulli. 'hether it is a
mud hut with a thatched roof in tribal "frica, or an igloo of the Eskimo, the circle remains the
obvious form in which to build a roofed house from the ma7ority of natural materials.
!ut straight lines and rectangles have roved of more ractical use.
Straight walls with windows: 6500 BC
One of the best reserved 8eolithic towns is Catal 9uyuk, covering some )- acres in southern
Turkey. 9ere the houses are rectangular, with windows but no doors. They ad7oin each other,
like cells in a honeycomb, and the entrance to each is through the roof. The windows are a
hay accident, made ossible by the sloing site. Each house ro7ects a little above its
neighbour, roviding sace for the window.
8ot surrisingly, an idea as e#cellent as this catches on elsewhere and brings with it other
imrovements. $n a walled village or town, on a flat site, windows re(uire the introduction of
lanes and courtyards. They too will become standard features in most human settlements.

Stone Age graves and temples: 5th !nd millennium BC
The massive 8eolithic architecture of western Euroe begins, in the .th millennium !C, with
assage graves. The name reflects the design. $n any such grave a stone assage leads into
the centre of a great mound of turf, where a tomb chamber - with walls made first of wood but
later of stone - contains the distinguished dead of the surrounding community.
" famous early e#amle of a stone assage grave, from about :*** !C on the ;le <ongue off
the coast of !rittany, has a magnificent dome formed by corbelling 3each ring of stone 7uts
slightly inwards from the one below4. $t is the same rincile as the beehive tombs of &ycenae,
but they are more than -*** years later.

Over the centuries increasingly large slabs of stone, or megaliths 3from =reek megashuge
and lithosstone4, are used for the assage graves. "nd an astronomical theme is added. The
graves begin to be aligned in relation to the annual cycle of the sun.
"n outstanding e#amle is the assage grave at 8ew grange in $reland, dating from about -.**
!C. 9uge slabs of stone, carved in intricate siral atterns, form the walls of the chamber. "t
sunrise on the winter solstice 3the shortest day of the year, when the sun itself seems in danger
of dying4 the rays enetrate the length of the assage to illuminate the innermost recess.
$n a later stage of this deely mysterious 8eolithic tradition the megaliths, reviously hidden
beneath the mounds of the tombs, emerge in their own right as great standing stones, often
arranged in circles. The ritual urose of such circles is not known. They too, in many cases,
have a solar alignment, usually now relating to sunrise at the summer solstice.
The most striking of these circles is +tonehenge, in England. The site is in ritual use over a very
long eriod, from about )*** to 22** !C. The largest stones, with their enormous lintels, are
erected in about -*** !C.

" striking grou of megalithic temles, far removed from the "tlantic coast but in a similar
tradition, is found in &alta. The main grou is at Tar#ien, where the three surviving structures
date from around 2.** !C. They are built above the ruins of an earlier temle.
The buildings are constructed from great blocks of dressed limestone, many of them decorated
with atterns of low-relief sirals or images of sacrificial animals.
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