Today it is difficult to imagine how people could live without various structures and buildings. No one can live without housing and any person should still have it. But everything depends on the level of cultural development. Some may have luxurious apartments, while others may live in abandoned basements. But who first came up with the very first house, and what was it like?
Many people think that the very first home for man was a cave. But that's not true. Gray and cold caves were not suitable for the life of primitive man. People could go there, but only in emergency cases, for example, an animal attack or severe frost, rain and other factors. But because of this, there is no need to consider caves as the very first home of man. In addition to all of the above, the caves were used by people to perform religious rituals.
Naturally, the very first house in the world has not survived to this day. But it is quite possible to reconstruct its appearance if you carefully study the structures of the tribes. Today on Earth you can find tribes whose life is close to primitive times. And looking at their houses, one can imagine the very first houses in the world. In primitive times, the climate on Earth was much warmer, so people built wind barriers rather than houses. They built their houses from tree bark or branches, as well as grass. This shelter could provide shelter from bad weather, but it could not save you from danger.
After man changed his nomadic lifestyle to a sedentary one, that’s when the very first houses on the planet appeared. These houses were huts and huts, which were built from woven thin branches. But there were people who also continued to wander. They specially created portable houses for themselves that resembled tents. They were built as follows: first, a frame was prepared from large and strong bones of an animal, for example, a mammoth. The frame was then hung with the skins of killed animals. And in warm weather, tree bark was used for this. And this very first house was considered portable or portable.
Many experts think that man built the very first house not for himself, but to store crops in it. And the general well-being of the entire tribe depended on the quality of the harvest at that time.
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.
There was a fire going on 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.
Project "House number 1" television company TNT began on July 1 and ended on November 1, 2003. The program format was purchased from the English television company Zeal.
The project featured 90 prime-time episodes and 14 special events on every weekend.
According to the terms of the project, 12 married couples from all regions of Russia built a house together, but only one of them received the keys. From the fifth week, couples left the construction site one by one by decision of the general “family” council, and the audience chose the winners from the two remaining couples.
Requirements for participating couples: newlyweds who have already submitted an application to the registry office and are preparing for the wedding within a month, or a husband and wife who do not have their own home. The personalities of the spouses and the scope of their activities are very diverse: from a housewife to a business woman, from a military man to an accountant; as well as everyone who agrees to take a 3-month vacation and receive a super prize - a house in Moscow, built with their own hands and according to their own design.
The couples were helped in the construction by real professionals - architects, interior designers, foremen, builders, landscape designers.
According to the TNS Gallup TV Index, provided by the TNT press service, the six-month audience of Dom-2 in 2008 was about 15 million people throughout Russia. “They are mostly women (65% of all viewers of Dom-2).
The program attracts the attention of people of all ages, but “Dom-2” is more interesting to young people aged 16 to 34 years old with secondary and higher education.”
Show rules:
1. Every Wednesday, participants choose a pair.
2. Every Thursday there is a vote during which the participants decide which of the single players should leave the show.
3. A new player takes the place of the one who dropped out: a boy takes the place of the girl, a girl takes the place of the boy.
4. Every week the right to choose passes to a different gender.
5. Three couples in love reach the final, and during the live broadcast of the final show, viewers decide by SMS voting who will get the House.
Former participants of the show more than once became heroes of crime chronicles. Alexey Avdeev was detained in August 2005 right on the set. He was identified by a TV viewer from Smolensk, from whom he, working as a realtor, stole 2 thousand dollars. Avdeev was sentenced by the court to four years in a maximum security colony for fraud.
In April 2006, Kirill Komarovsky was detained in Moscow on suspicion of fraud. After spending a week on the project, he got a job as an assistant to a realtor in a Moscow company. And already on the second day of work he disappeared, having received a deposit for the apartment.
Former participant in the reality show “Dom-2” Vyacheslav Popov was sentenced to 6.5 years in a maximum security colony. A student at Syktyvkar State University was caught red-handed by drug control officers in July 2006 while selling a batch of hashish.
Two former participants of the show died. Oksana Aplekaeva was found strangled on the Moscow-Riga highway in September 2008. And a year earlier, in June 2007, Kristina Kalinina died. She was treated poorly by the show's cast because she abandoned her family for fame. She left the project based on the results of the vote. She died as a result of kidney and heart failure, according to some sources, as a result of stress after leaving the reality show.
The reality show "Dom-2" often becomes the object of public criticism.
In May 2005, deputies of the Moscow City Duma Commission on Health and Public Health, headed by Lyudmila Stebenkova, prepared an appeal to the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation Vladimir Ustinov, in which they demanded to close the television project and bring the host of this program, Ksenia Sobchak, to criminal liability for pimping. According to the appeal, the program “generally and systematically exploits the interest in sex: it repeatedly showed scenes of petting and acts of masturbation.”
At the beginning of June 2005, Ksenia Sobchak went to court demanding protection of her honor and dignity. In July, the Presnensky District Court of Moscow issued a resolution to terminate the proceedings on the claim of the TV presenter against deputies of the Moscow City Duma. The court ruled that the deputies cared about the morality of the electorate and had every right to write such an appeal.
The show caused sharp criticism from the Public Council on Morals on TV, which includes authoritative people from among writers, artists, politicians, and religious figures. In December 2008, members of the Council came to the conclusion that it was necessary to close the television project “Dom-2” or fine the TNT television channel a large sum for broadcasting obscene phrases and erotic scenes.
There are claims against the organizers of the television project and Rosprirodnadzor. In the summer of 2004, Rosprirodnadzor inspectors identified a number of gross violations of environmental legislation committed by the organizers of the Dom-2 program. In particular, the discharge of untreated sewage and household waste into the Istra River, illegal cutting of trees and clogging of the stream bed were carried out.
Insula (lat. Insula - literally translated as island) - in Ancient Roman architecture - a multi-storey residential building with rooms and apartments intended for rent. Appeared no earlier than the 3rd century BC. e. They usually had from three to five floors; there are references to eight-story insulas. They constituted the massive construction of ancient Roman cities. Both the poor and wealthy sections of the Roman population lived in the insula.
Insulae were built using the usual rubble masonry method for Ancient Rome. During the Republic, small, irregularly shaped tuff blocks held together with cement were used as building material. Later, insulas began to be built from brick. The roofs were made of tiles.
The first floor of the insula was usually occupied by galleries with small shops. From there there was an entrance to a light courtyard around which the rooms were arranged. Usually a separate staircase led to each apartment or room: by dismantling it, the owner could block the tenant in his room until he paid off the rent. The first floors of insulas were usually rented by wealthy citizens: such apartments had high ceilings (up to 3.5 m) and wide windows protected by thick shutters: mica and glass were rarely used because of their high cost. Apartments from the third floor onwards were usually intended for poorer tenants: the windows were small and the ceilings were so low that residents had to stoop to walk in them. Wooden mezzanines were often added.
There was no central heating: heat in the rooms was provided by individual water boilers. There was usually no sewerage in insulae: in Rome, sewage was carried into dung heaps or simply thrown out of the windows; water was taken from nearby springs or fountains. In other cities there was a latrine on the ground floor, as, for example, excavations at Ostia showed.
According to sources, the rent in the insulas was quite high. Already during the Republic, the annual rent for an apartment on the fifth floor was about 2,000 sesterces. Apartments on the 2nd and 3rd floors cost from 3,000 sesterces or more. With that kind of money you could buy a whole house in Italy. On the upper floors, 2 or 3 families often lived in one room.
The owner of the insula could evict his tenants at any time. There were frequent speculations, from which, first of all, the tenants suffered. The order in the house and the payment of rent were usually monitored by a trusted slave - insularius.
The first mention of multi-story buildings in Rome is contained in Titus Livy: on the eve of the Second Punic War, a bull, having escaped from the market, climbed the stairs to the third floor, which was considered a bad omen. It should be noted that those insulas that were built in compliance with all construction standards were reliably protected both from collapses and from the rapid spread of fire in the event of a fire. In Rome itself, according to the “Marble Plan,” there were 46 thousand insulas in Rome (for comparison, there were 1,790 mansions), but few insulas in Rome survived: the active reconstruction of the city destroyed the old ruins. Their structure can be judged from archaeological excavations in Ostia. Insulae are an example of the urban planning art of ancient Rome. In Europe, after the destruction of the Roman Empire, apartment buildings began to be built only in the late Middle Ages.
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.
This is a chapter from a wall newspaper published by the charity project “Briefly and clearly about the most interesting things.” Click on the newspaper thumbnail below and read other articles on topics that interest you. Thank you!
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 butchered 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 hearth was being built... However, no, there were no hearths 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, when 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, Pompeii of the Paleolithic 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 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 resemblance 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.
