From Early Man's Tents to modern Palaces - 2.

As the Ice Age glaciers receded, farming communities were established across the continent of Europe, and houses were increasingly built to last. In the Mediterranean region and across Central Europe, they built rectangular houses, often with thatched roofs. One of these, dating from the 4th millennium BC, was excavated in Danube Valley in present day Bulgaria. In front of the house was an entrance room; behind was a living room with an oven and grind stone. As farmers moved deeper into temperate Europe, pitched roofs and overhanging eaves became important to cope with heavy rain and snow. Houses also began to include an area to stall animals on winter.

Cahokia was the largest town of the Mississippian culture of North America, lying across the Mississippi river modern St Louis. It may have housed as many as 30000 people in its heyday around 1050to 1250 AD. A substantial log palisade surrounded the central part of the town where the houses of the elite were built. These are constructed of timer poles and had high thatched roofs with a central opening through which smoke escaped from the hearth below. Each house was home to one family. Also located in the central compound were enormous terraced mounds in which the leaders of society were buried. Less important families lived outside the compound, their homes spread out on either side along a ridge above the Mississippi.

Chinese architecture embodies principles which have remained unchanged for centuries – wooden framed buildings where it was the wooden uprights, rather than the walls, that supported the roof. This limited the height and width of the house, and dictated steeply sloping roofs and large overhangs. Chinese houses were designed to be self contained worlds, each as precisely organized as the larger world outside, with the owner’s status evident in the building’s size. Set with in a walled courtyard, rooms and porches provided a series of open and closed spaces.

From Early Man's Tents to modern Palaces

The earliest human sought shelter, to protect themselves and their families against attack and the natural calamities. In satisfying these needs, they created ever more solid buildings, laying the foundations for modern community living. The many forms of habitation that developed reflected differences in climate, available materials, and the culture of the area and the status of the owner.

Stone Age men and women, though popularly seen as cave dwellers, did in fact build shelters for themselves. The remains of a branch shelter 300000 years old have been found at Terra Amata, near Nice in France. Much later, Homo sapiens moved north and east to hunt in areas bordering the great ice sheets. Some 15000 years ago hunters in Siberia were using tent like shelters made from animal skins, elephant’s tusks and bones.

Before 6000BC, the inhabitants of the Cypriot village of Khirokitia, located on the slopes of a river valley near the island’s south coast, built beehive shaped houses. Each beehive had a mud brick dome resting on a round limestone base, probably the easiest shape to build using the locally available materials similar structures have also been found, from the same period, on the Middle Eastern mainland. Inside the house, there was a hearth bench, and often brick piers to support an upper floor. Some may also have had annexes to house farm animals the courtyard outside had a well.

In the small Mesopotamian village of Tell Madhhur, a fire sometime in the 5th millennium spelt domestic catastrophe for the inhabitants of one house but left a treasure trove for archaeologists. Its walls survived and everyday objects were left in the ruins where they had formerly been used. A long room with a hearth formed the centre of the house, with smaller rooms opening from it on either sided. A store room stocked with pottery jars and a kitchen. An earthern ramp gave access to the roof which would have provided additional working and sleeping space, and other rooms used for various domestic activities. (Cont.)