A lot of time has passed since people used only natural shelters for their lives. Man developed, his way of life changed. The first human dwellings appeared, which he built specifically for his residence.

What were the first houses made of?

Today everyone is accustomed to the fact that it is possible to purchase any material for building a house. You can even order material from the other side of the world. Just pay for the services - they will deliver with pleasure. But it was not always so. Just as there was not always mail, steamships and railways for transporting goods.

In those distant times in question, peoples lived separately from each other. There was practically no trade. And, the materials for construction and housing had to be used those that were in abundance nearby. Or those that could be adapted for construction without significant effort.

The building material used also influenced the shape of the first dwelling. Therefore, different parts of the planet have formed their own special types of human habitations. Despite their existing diversity, they also have significant similarities. But these similarities are due to the ease of making housing. Why make it complicated when you can make it simple?

In steppe, semi-desert, and tundra areas, dwellings appeared that were made like huts. They were made from branches of bushes and trees and covered with grass, animal skins and other materials. They were built in North America, Central Asia, and Siberia. Such housing was called: wigwam, yurt, tent, and so on.

In semi-desert, desert areas, houses were built from materials that were underfoot. There were no others. This is a well-known material - clay. The walls of buildings were erected from it, and vaults were made. If wood could be found, the base of the roof was made from it and covered with reeds, grass or other materials. Such housing was called adobe housing.

If straw was added to the clay, then such houses were called adobe. Usually these were small structures rectangular or round in plan. Their height was small - the height of a person. Such housing was built in Central Asia and Africa.

In mountainous and rocky areas, stone was used for construction. In fact, what else can a house be built from here? Walls were built from it. The roof was made of wood or also of stone. An example of such a structure is the Georgian saklya. In addition, caves continued to be built in the mountains. Only for this purpose cavities were specially cut out in the rocks.

And such caves over time looked more and more like ordinary rooms and apartments. For example, in Italy there are entire ancient cities in the rocks. In some areas, entire secret cities were built in caves to protect against conquerors. In the Turkish region of Cappadocia, well-preserved underground cities were recently discovered, in which thousands of people could hide and live.

In forest and taiga areas, where wood was abundant, houses were built from it. Here we can mention the chopped Russian hut, the Ukrainian hut. In Europe, wood was also used for construction. These are the so-called chalets, which means a shepherd's house. In general, forests in one form or another were used for construction by many peoples of the world in different parts of the world.

Well, where there was no forest, and a thick layer of ice prevented access to the clay, the buildings were made from it. This custom existed in Greenland. There, dwellings were built from dense snow or ice. These houses were called igloos.

On the other side of the globe, where, unlike Greenland, it was necessary to escape not from the cold, but from the heat, light structures were built. In the deserts of Arabia they lived in tents, and in Africa - in buildings woven from branches. It was not hot in such buildings. They were well ventilated around the clock.

Types of human housing depending on lifestyle

The way of life of peoples also had a significant influence on the appearance of his home. In those distant times, there were two ways of life for people. Those who were engaged in agriculture led a sedentary lifestyle. They lived in their area permanently. And, accordingly, their houses were reliable and massive. Such houses were sometimes even successfully used to protect against uninvited guests.

Unlike farmers, pastoralists and hunters led a nomadic lifestyle. They had no need to build reliable heavy houses. After all, they had to be moved from place to place from time to time. Therefore, lightweight collapsible buildings were built. A little later, some peoples began to use not only collapsible houses, but houses that could be moved on wheels.

Like all living beings with the ability to move, a person needs temporary or permanent shelter or housing for sleep, rest, protection from bad weather and attacks from animals or other people. Therefore, concerns about housing, along with concerns about food and clothing, should have, first of all, worried the mind of primitive man. In the essays on primitive culture, we said that already in the Stone Age, man used not only caves, tree hollows, rock crevices, etc. as natural shelters, but also developed various types of buildings that we can see among modern peoples at all levels of culture. Since the time when man gained the ability to mine metals, his construction activities have advanced rapidly, facilitating and providing other cultural achievements.

“When one thinks of the nests of birds, the dams of beavers, the tree platforms made by monkeys, it will hardly be possible to suppose that man has ever been incapable of making a shelter of one kind or another for himself” (E. B. Taylor, Anthropology "). If he was not always satisfied with it, it was because, moving from place to place, he could find a cave, hollow or other natural shelter. South African Bushmen live in mountain caves and make temporary huts for themselves. Unlike animals, which are capable of only one type of building, man creates, depending on local conditions, buildings of various types and gradually improves them.

Since the ancestral home of man was in the tropical region, the first human building appeared there. It was not even a hut, but a canopy or screen made of two stakes stuck into the ground with a crossbar, against which tree branches and huge leaves of tropical palm trees leaned on the windward side. On the leeward side of the canopy there is a fire, on which food is prepared, and around which the family warms itself in cold weather. Such dwellings are built for themselves by the natives of central Brazil and Australians who walk completely naked, and sometimes by modern hunters in the northern forests. The next step in the construction of a dwelling is a round hut made of branches with dense foliage stuck into the ground, tied or intertwined with tops, forming a kind of roof above the head. Our round garden pavilions, covered with branches, bear a strong resemblance to such a savage hut.

Some of the Brazilian Indians put more art into their work, as they make a frame from the tops of young trees tied together or poles stuck into the ground, which they then cover with large palm leaves. Australians also make the same huts in case of a long stay, covering the frame of branches with bark, leaves, grass, sometimes even laying turf or covering the outside of the hut with clay.

Thus, the invention and construction of a round hut is a simple matter and accessible to the most backward peoples. If wandering hunters carry with them the poles and cover of the hut, then it turns into a tent, which more cultured peoples cover with skins, felt or canvas.

The round hut is so small that you can only lie or squat in it. An important improvement was the installation of a hut on pillars or walls made of intertwined branches and earth, that is, the construction of round huts, which were in ancient times in Europe, and are still found in Africa and other parts of the world. To increase the capacity of the round hut, a hole was dug inside it. This digging of an internal hole inspired the idea of ​​making the walls of the hut out of earth, and it turned into a dugout with a conical flat roof made of tree trunks, brushwood, turf and even stones, which were placed on top to protect against gusts of wind.

A major step in the art of construction was the replacement of round huts with quadrangular wooden houses, the walls of which were much stronger than earthen walls, which were easily washed away by rain. But solid wooden walls made of horizontally laid logs did not appear immediately and not everywhere; their construction became possible only with the availability of metal axes and saws. For a long time, their walls were made of vertical pillars, the spaces between which were filled with turf or intertwined rods, sometimes coated with clay. In order to protect against people, animals and river floods, buildings on poles or on stilts, already familiar to readers, began to appear, which are now found on the islands of the Malay Archipelago and in many other places.

Further, doors and windows were an improvement in human habitation. The door remains for a long time the only opening of the primitive dwelling; later, light holes or windows appear, in which now in many places bull's bubble, mica, even ice, etc. are used instead of glass, and sometimes they are only plugged up at night or in bad weather. A very important improvement was the introduction of a hearth or stove inside the house, since the hearth not only allows one to maintain the desired temperature in the home, but also dries and ventilates, making the home more hygienic.

Types of dwellings of cultural peoples: 1) the house of an ancient German; 2) home of the Franks; 3) Japanese house; 4) Egyptian house; 5) Etruscan house; 6) ancient Greek house; 7) ancient Roman house; 8) old French house; 9) Arabic house; 10) English mansion.

The types of wooden buildings of different times and peoples are extremely diverse. Buildings made of clay and stone are no less diverse and even more widespread. A wooden hut or hut is easier to build than a stone one, and stone architecture probably evolved from the simpler wooden one. The rafters, beams and columns of stone buildings are undoubtedly copied from the corresponding wooden forms, but, of course, on this basis one cannot deny the independent development of stone architecture and explain everything in it by imitation.

Primitive man used natural caves for living, and then began to build artificial caves for himself where soft rocks lay. In southern Palestine, entire ancient cave cities, carved into the rocks, have been preserved.

Artificial cave dwellings still serve as shelter for humans in China, northern Africa and other places. But such dwellings have a limited area of ​​distribution and appear in places where people already possessed fairly high technology.

Probably the first stone dwelling was the same as those found among Australians and in some other places. Australians build the walls of their huts from stones picked up from the ground, not connected in any way. Since it is not everywhere possible to find suitable material from uncut stones in the form of slabs of layered rocks, man began to fasten the stones with clay. Round huts made of rough stones held together with clay are still found in northern Syria. Such huts made of rough stones, as well as those made of clay, river silt and mud along with reeds, were the beginning of all subsequent stone buildings.

Over time, the stones began to be hewn so that they could be fitted one to another. A very important and major step in the construction business was the cutting of stones in the form of rectangular stone slabs, which were laid in regular rows. Such cutting of stone blocks reached its highest perfection in ancient Egypt. Cement for fastening stone slabs was not used for a long time, and was not needed, these slabs adhered so well to each other. Cement, however, has long been known to the ancient world. The Romans used not only ordinary cement made from lime and sand, but also waterproof cement, to which volcanic ash was added.

In countries where there was little stone and a dry climate, buildings made of clay or mud mixed with straw were very common, since they were cheaper and even better than wooden ones. Sun-dried bricks made of fatty clay mixed with straw have been known in the East since ancient times. Buildings made from such bricks are now widespread in the dry regions of the Old World and in Mexico. Fired bricks and tiles, necessary for countries with rainy climates, were a later invention, improved by the ancient Romans.

Stone buildings were originally covered with reeds, straw, wood, the roof frame is now made of wood, wooden beams have only recently begun to be replaced with metal ones. But for a long time people have thought of constructing first false and then true vaults. In a false vault, stone slabs or bricks are laid in the form of two staircases until the tops of these staircases meet so much that they can be covered with one brick; Children make such false vaults from wooden cubes. Similar false vaults can be seen in the Egyptian pyramids in the ruins of buildings in Central America and in the temples of India. The time and place of invention of the true code is unknown; The ancient Greeks did not use it. It was introduced into use and perfected by the Romans: all later buildings of this kind originated from Roman bridges, domes and vaulted halls. A person’s home complements clothing and, like clothing, depends on the climate and geographic environment. Therefore, in different areas of the globe we find a predominance of different types of housing.

In areas with a hot and damp climate, inhabited by naked, half-naked or lightly dressed people, the dwelling is intended not so much for warmth, it plays the role of protection from tropical downpours. Therefore, the dwellings here are light huts or huts, covered with thatch, bamboo, reeds and palm leaves. In hot and dry areas of deserts and semi-deserts, the settled population lives in clay houses with a flat earthen roof, which provides good protection from the sun's heat, while nomads in Africa and Arabia live in tents or tents.

In more or less humid areas with an average annual temperature of 10° to + 20°C. in Europe and America, thin-walled stone houses, covered with thatch, reeds, tiles and iron, predominate; in Korea, China and Japan, thin-walled wooden houses, covered mostly with bamboo. An interesting variation on the latter area are Japanese houses with movable interior partitions and outer walls of mats and frames that can be moved aside to allow air and light in and allow the occupants to jump outside in the event of an earthquake. In thin-walled houses of the European-American type, the frames are single, stoves are absent or replaced by fireplaces, and in the Chinese-Japanese east - by heating pads and braziers. In the dry areas of this region, the settled population lives in the same stone houses with flat roofs as in dry tropical countries. Huts are used here in spring, summer and autumn. Nomads live here in winter in dugouts, and in summer in felt tents or yurts, the frame of which is made of wood.

In areas with an average annual temperature of 0° to +10° C, maintaining warmth in the home plays a decisive role; Therefore, the brick and wooden houses here are thick-walled, on a foundation, with stoves and double frames, with the ceiling topped with a layer of sand or clay and with a double floor. Roofs are covered with thatch, planks and shingles (shingles), roofing felt, tiles and iron. The area of ​​thick-walled houses with iron roofs is also the area of ​​urban high-rise buildings, the extreme expression of which is the American "skyscrapers" of dozens of floors. Nomads of semi-deserts and deserts live here in dugouts and felt yurts, and wandering hunters of the northern forests live in huts covered with reindeer skins or birch bark.

The zone with lower annual temperatures is characterized in the south by warm winter wooden houses covered with planks, and to the north, in the tundra region, among polar nomads and fishermen - portable tents or tents covered with deer, fish and seal skins. Some polar peoples, for example, the Koryaks, live in winter in pits dug in the ground and lined inside with logs, over which a roof is erected with a hole that serves for the exit of smoke and for entering and exiting the dwelling via a permanent or ladder.

In addition to housing, a person erects various buildings for storing supplies, for housing pets, for his work activities, for various meetings, etc. The types of these structures are extremely diverse, depending on geographical, economic and living conditions.

The dwellings of nomads and wandering hunters are not fenced in anything, but with the transition to settled life, fences appear near the estate, near areas occupied by cultivated plants or intended for corralling or grazing livestock.

The types of these barriers depend on the availability of a particular material. They are made of earth (ramps, ditches and ditches), wicker, poles, planks, stone, thorny bushes and, finally, barbed wire. In mountainous areas, for example, in the Crimea and the Caucasus, stone walls predominate, in the forest-steppe zone - fences; in wooded areas with small plowed spaces, fences are made of poles and stakes, and in some places of boulders. Barriers include not only estate or rural fences, but also wooden and stone walls of ancient cities, as well as long fortifications, which in the old days were erected to protect entire states. These were the Russian “guard lines” (total length 3600 km), which were built in the 16th-17th centuries to protect against Tatar raids, and the famous Chinese Wall (finished in the 5th century AD), 3300 km long, protecting China from Mongolia .

The choice of a place for human habitation is determined, on the one hand, by natural conditions, i.e., relief, soil properties and proximity to sufficient amounts of fresh water, and on the other hand, by the opportunity to obtain a livelihood in the chosen place.

Settlements (individual houses and groups of houses) are usually located not in lowlands or basins, but on hills with a horizontal surface. So, for example, in mountain villages and cities, individual streets, if possible, are located in the same plane in order to avoid unnecessary ascents and descents; therefore, the lines of the houses have an arcuate shape and correspond to isohypses, that is, lines of equal height. In the same mountain valley there are many more settlements on the slope that is better illuminated by the sun than on the opposite one. On very steep slopes (over 45°), human dwellings, with the exception of caves, are not found at all. Sandy loam or light loamy soil is best for human habitation. When constructing housing, avoid soil that is swampy, clayey or too loose (loose sand, black soil). In populous settlements, soil deficiencies that impede movement are eliminated by means of bridges, sidewalks and various pavement structures.

The main reason determining the emergence and distribution of human settlements is fresh water. River valleys and lake shores are the most populated, and in interfluve spaces, dwellings appear where groundwater is shallow and the construction of wells and reservoirs does not present insurmountable difficulties. Waterless spaces are deserted, but are quickly populated with artificial irrigation. Among other reasons that attract human settlements, mineral deposits and roads, especially railways, play an important role. Any accumulation of human dwellings, a village or a city, arises only where a knot of human relations is tied, where roads converge or where goods are transshipped or transferred.

In human settlements, houses are either scattered without any order, as in Ukrainian villages, or they stick out in rows, forming streets, as we see in Great Russian villages and villages. With an increase in the number of inhabitants, a village or city grows either in width, increasing the number of houses, or in height, i.e., turning one-story houses into multi-story ones; but more often this growth occurs simultaneously in both directions.

Scientists attribute the dwellings of ancient people to the very first method of defense in history, which was used by man to protect himself from external threats. The second way was clothing. Let's look at how the house has changed in the history of mankind in our article.

Paleolithic era

Previously, scientists believed that during the Paleolithic (the first period of the Stone Age) people did not have settled dwellings, hunted, and led a wandering life. Archaeologist I. Bayer discovered and described a Paleolithic dwelling during excavations at the beginning of the 20th century. However, at that time the discovery was not given serious significance. The study of the issue began later by archaeologists P.P. Efimenko and S.N. Zamyatin. These specialists were able to study and describe in detail the first dwellings of ancient people. This became possible thanks to a new technique.

Essence of the method

Previously, excavations were carried out using a caisson method: the territory was divided into squares and each section was explored. All finds were described, photographed, and further dug. This approach made it possible to study each site thoroughly, but did not provide the opportunity to create an overall picture of the study area.

Archaeologists Zamyatin and Efimenko conducted excavations over vast areas. The territory was also divided into squares, but the archaeologist could see major finds in their relative positions. Thus, the opportunity arose to study the dwellings of ancient people.

A new method was used to study dwellings during excavations in Gagarino, as well as in the Kostenkovsko-Borshchevsky district of the Voronezh region. As a result of the research, it was concluded that many Paleolithic inhabitants led a sedentary life, including hunters.

The described method is used today by specialists all over the world.

Structures made from skeletons

The dwellings of ancient people were discovered repeatedly during excavations. They dated back hundreds of thousands and millions of years. Many interesting details were discovered in such buildings.

During the Upper Paleolithic era, there was a revolution in the process of building and ordering housing. Perhaps it is associated with a radical change in the climate of the East European Plain.

23-18 thousand years ago there was a severe cold snap. The northwestern territories of Russia are covered with severe ice. The permafrost area extended to the Black Sea coast. Ancient people were faced with a serious choice - to leave these territories or change their way of life. The population chose the second path, although it was not easy.

The choice was determined by the favorable conditions of the forest-tundra or forest-steppe. Many bushes and grasses grew here, and therefore mammoths and other game were found. Conditions for hunting are quite suitable. But the severe cold, down to minus 50 degrees, required warm clothing and the construction of comfortable housing.

Before the climate change, light huts were built on the ground. In the center of such a building there was a hearth, around which there was a spot with the remains of bones and other traces of the life activity of the ancients. The houses were probably covered with animal skins. This type of construction was common throughout the world during the Upper Paleolithic and in later centuries.

Alexander-Telman type

Such dwellings of ancient people resembled those described earlier. They were also round with a hearth in the middle. The floor went down and there were holes for household items. The structure of the hearths became more complex: they also deepened, and there were pits around them for cooking. Stones and large mammoth bones were placed along the contour of the dwelling to give strength to the entire structure.

Aleksandrovsko-Pushkarevsky type

These structures were elongated, had a length of 20-35 meters, a width of 5-6 meters. The floor in the central part and the hearths went deeper down. There were sections inside. Various items were stored in holes in the floor. Food was baked in pits near the fireplaces.

The roof of these dwellings was a gable structure.

The emergence of new types of dwellings was explained by the adaptation of the ancients to changed climate conditions, as well as the emergence of a new people from the Danube coast.

Kostenkovsko-Avdeevsky type

This variety represents the most complex design of this era. The dwelling looks like an oval-shaped depression 30 meters long and 8 meters wide. The lesions were 1-1.2 meters in diameter. The storage pits were round or pear-shaped.

The ceiling was constructed from large mammoth bones. Skulls and flat mammoth bones were attached to the floor at the entrance. The roof was made from tusks. The section for storing items was also separated by bones.

There were numerous holes on the floor that served as cabinets and drawers.

Anosovsko-Mezinsky type

Such buildings appeared 20 thousand years ago among the inhabitants of the Russian Plain. These are ground-type houses of a rounded shape, 6-9 meters in diameter. Inside, archaeologists discovered many mammoth bones. Dwellings were built from them. The bones were placed in a thoughtful order, with amazing beauty and symmetry. Archaeologists were especially struck by the “herringbones” formed by the mandibular bones.

If we talk about how to draw the dwelling of ancient people, then it will be a rather interesting combination of large and small mammoth bones. This is clearly visible in the photo.

Such structures had pits for storing things. Many designs surprised with their expressiveness, and they even decided to preserve them in museums. The Kyiv Zoological Museum displays a life-size reconstruction of similar houses.

The primitive dwellings of ancient people of this type were located in a certain way: in a circle, inside which people led their daily lives. Such villages dated back to 14 thousand years ago and were located in Eastern Europe. After the disappearance of the mammoth, the “mammoth” buildings also disappeared.

Archaeologists are very struck by one feature of the described buildings. They had a “clean” floor. Scientists still cannot understand why there are no traces of human activity left on the floor. Or were these structures not houses at all?

Some experts suggest that the structures with accumulations of bones were intended for religious activities, and not for living. Other scientists believe that mammoth bones were used by the ancients as musical instruments.

It must be said that the presented dwellings were found only in Eastern Europe. In other areas of the planet, people lived in caves and grotto niches.

Tent houses

In addition to those presented, dwellings in the form of tents were also known. Such a house could be carried with you. This feature was used by nomadic ancient people.

Such dwellings resembled Indian wigwams and Asian tents. The huts were built from animal bones and covered with their skins. The houses were quickly set up and also easily cleaned if necessary.

A fire was starting inside. The smoke was released through a hole at the top of the structure.

Neolithic houses

During the final era of the Stone Age, people began to build houses from stone. There has been a transition from agriculture to cattle breeding.

Dwellings were characterized by permanence. Houses were no longer moved from place to place. People no longer wandered after animals, but grazed livestock near their houses.

The dwellings of this era were distinguished by a more complex structure; they were divided into rooms with different purposes.

Studying

Nowadays, the study of ancient houses begins in high school. This topic is quite interesting for students. In 5th grade history lessons, schoolchildren get acquainted with the dwelling of an ancient man. Teachers tell children about different types of houses presented in different historical eras.

At the end of the lesson, the children are given the task of creating a project “Dwelling of Ancient People” in the form of a presentation.

Man's first house

Today it is simply impossible to imagine people's lives without buildings and structures. No one can live without housing. Any person, no matter what level of cultural development he is at, has one or another home - from luxury apartments to an abandoned basement. I wonder who was the first to come up with the idea of ​​building houses, and what was the very first house like?

Man Cave

Many are inclined to think that the very first home for man, albeit primitive, was a cave.

Not certainly in that way. The dark and damp caves were unsuitable for life. If people climbed there, it was in some special emergency cases - an attack by some primitive animal or severe cold, wind and rain. Of course, these were far from the most beautiful houses in the world. The caves were also used for religious rituals.

Weatherproof shelters

So the very first houses were not caves. Naturally, these unusual houses have not survived to this day, but it is possible to “reconstruct” their appearance if you get acquainted with the buildings of today’s tribes, whose life is as close as possible to primitive times.

So, living in a warm climate, people built not houses, but so-called wind barriers. The materials for construction were branches, tree bark, and grass. Such a shelter could only provide shelter from bad weather, but did not save from danger.

Lifestyle change

And only when people changed their nomadic lifestyle to a sedentary one, the very first houses appeared. They were huts and huts woven from thin branches. And those who could not sit still, but still liked to roam, learned to build portable dwellings such as tents. Here's how they were built: they built a “frame” from strong and large animal bones, for example, mammoths. This “frame” was hung with the skins of killed animals in cold weather and tree bark in warm weather. This “house” was, as they would now call it, portable, that is, portable.

The cave is probably the most ancient natural shelter of man. In soft rocks (limestone, loess, tuff), people have long carved out artificial caves, where they built comfortable dwellings, sometimes entire cave cities. Thus, in the cave city of Eski-Kermen in Crimea (pictured), rooms carved into the rock have fireplaces, chimneys, “beds,” niches for dishes and other things, water containers, windows and doorways with traces of hinges.

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The wall newspaper “Dwellings of the Peoples of the World” is a short “wall encyclopedia” of traditional dwellings of peoples from all over the world. The 66 “residential real estate objects” we selected are arranged alphabetically: from “abylaisha” to “yaranga”. All wall newspapers published by our charity project “Briefly and clearly about the most interesting” are waiting for you on the website. There are also Vkontakte community and a thread on the website of St. Petersburg parents Litvan, where we discuss the release of new newspapers. Anyone can receive our newspapers for free at distribution points in St. Petersburg.

How it all began

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According to the hypothesis put forward by the American archaeologist John Clark, the appearance of long-term sites and dwellings is associated with an increase in the duration of childhood. While the younger generation is being trained, the mobility of the hominid group is limited. “The young chimpanzee achieves independence between seven and eight years, and the transfer of the more complex skills possessed by early hominids must have required an even longer time,” Clark wrote.
Housing provides greater security for offspring. This is very important for apes, who rarely give birth to more than one offspring. And the problem of predators becomes especially critical when they live not on a tree, but on the ground. It is better to take care of the child in a relatively safe place, where one of the parents looks after the offspring while the other gets food. True, does some kind of “wind barrier” provide protection? Doubtful... A predator can easily find people hiding behind a flimsy fence by smell.
Another hypothesis, developed by the Soviet archaeologist V.Ya. Sergin, suggested that long-term dwellings arose in places where large game prey was cut up and eaten. Of course, small prey is literally eaten on the move. But when you manage to get an elephant, you can’t eat it and drag it away in one sitting. The entire community is invited to the place of prey (whether it is killed by a skilled hunter or an animal that has died a natural death) - this is what, for example, modern pygmies do in Central Africa. The meat should not go to waste, it should be consumed whole, simultaneously driving away the scavengers approaching from all sides. A family of ancient hominids would camp around their prey and throw a feast for several days; tools and raw materials for their preparation were brought here; a fireplace was being built... However, no, there were no fireplaces at that time. And around, perhaps, there was some kind of barrier made of branches pressed down by stones - protection either from the wind or from curious people.
It is clear that the above presents a very speculative picture. What gave people the first semblance of a home? Wind protection? From the sun? From predators? From prying eyes? From otherworldly forces? From the rain? From the cold?... An aesthetic feeling of “comfort”? Together?
Be that as it may, modern hunter-gatherers, stopping for a rest - even for one night - often build themselves simple shelters.
To begin with, it would be nice to find out when they appear - the first dwellings. But it's easy to say! As American anthropologist Jerry Moore writes, “Ideally, every site should be something like the ash-covered ruins of ancient Pompeii: a moment frozen in time.” But, alas, Paleolithic Pompeii is unknown to us. And the most ancient dwellings were obviously short-lived. A settled life is not for ancient hunters. If the analogy with modern hunting groups is correct, their shelters were nothing more than fences made of branches and, possibly, skins, at best, weighed down with stones. After a few days, people moved from the place and abandoned the remains of their homes, which fell apart, rotted and, most likely, disappeared without a trace. All that remained was the rubbish people had thrown in - scraps, bones, broken tools; perhaps depressions in places where supports were dug into the ground. If, as a result of a happy accident, all this was quickly buried under a layer of sediment, a certain “imprint” of the dwelling was obtained, the contours of which, in principle, can be identified by the distribution of cultural remains.
However, such a print still needs to be read. Research in this direction became possible only after the advent of a fairly advanced excavation technique - one in which a significant part of the area of ​​​​the ancient site was revealed, the ancient “floor” on which people lived was cleared. Any significant finds - bones, tools, etc. - fixed in place and plotted on the plan; then the entire ancient “residential complex” is analyzed. Now, by the way the clusters of artifacts are located, you can try to understand where the booty was cut up, where the tools were made, where the bones were thrown, and where the dwellings were located - if they really were here.
It was as a result of the use of such technology that it was possible to discover residential structures of the Stone Age. Of course, the oldest of them are the most controversial.

Early people

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So, the oldest find of this kind was made by British anthropologist Mary Leakey in 1962. At one of the sites of the Olduvai Gorge (which gave the world Homo habilis - Homo habilis), about 1.8 million years old, many stone tools and remains of animals were found - ancient giraffes, elephants, zebras, rhinoceroses, turtles, crocodiles... So, at one From parts of this site, Leakey's team discovered a number of stones arranged (laid out?) in the shape of a circle. As Mary Leakey wrote, this ring display is “the oldest structure made by man. It consists of individual lava blocks and ranges from three and a half to four meters in diameter. The similarity is striking to the crude stone circles built for temporary shelter by modern nomadic peoples.” So, Mary Leakey believed that she had found the oldest house on Earth. The stones, in her opinion, served to strengthen poles or branches stuck into the ground and forming something like a wind barrier or a simple hut.
Another Olduvai site, famous for the discovery of the skull of Paranthropus Boyce, revealed an oval accumulation of crushed bones and small stone fragments. It is surrounded by a relatively finds-free space, outside of which there are also bone fragments and tools. Mary Leakey suggested that in this place there was once a wind barrier that surrounded the central part of the parking lot.
Later, similar finds were made outside Olduvai.
Is this evidence enough to say that already one and a half million years ago our ancestors could build simple dwellings for themselves? Alas, not all experts agreed with this interpretation. And the older the site, the fewer sets of facts archaeologists have to work with.