Pre Historic | History of Architecture ~ Archidemia

Prehistory is the period before recorded history. The term "prehistory" can be used to refer to all time since the beginning of the universe, although it is more often used in referring to the period of time since life appeared on Earth, or even more specifically to the time since human-like beings appeared. In dividing up human prehistory, prehistorians typically use the three age system, whereas scholars of pre-human time periods typically use the well defined Rock record and its internationally defined stratum base within the geologic time scale. The three-age system is the per iodization of human prehistory into three consecutive time periods, named for their respective predominant tool-making technologies; the Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age.

Stone Age

Paleolithic
Mesolithic
Neolithic

Stone Age--lithic (stone), paleo (upper), meso (middle), and neo (new)

Upper Paleolithic Period (35,000-10,000 B.C.)
Mesolithic Period in Europe (7,000-4,000 B.C.)
Neolithic Period in Europe (4,000-1,500 B.C.)
Neolithic Period in Near East (6,000-3,500 B.C.)

I. PALEOLITHIC PERIOD

The beginning of control of human environment. Human activity includes stone tool making, specialization of stone tools to include bone harpoon, fish trap, heavy adzes and axes, use of bow and arrow, spear, chisel, primarily a hunting-fishing-fowling culture, domestication of dog.

II. MESOLITHIC PERIOD

Marching Warriors, rock painting.

vThe "Mesolithic," or "Middle Stone Age was the period in the development of human technology between the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods of the Stone Age. and ended with the introduction of agriculture.

vRemains from this period are few and far between, often limited to middens. In forested areas, the first signs of deforestation have been found, although this would only begin in earnest during the Neolithic, when more space was needed for agriculture.

vThe Mesolithic is characterized in most areas by small composite flint tools — microliths. Fishing tackle, stone adzes and wooden objects, e.g. canoes and bows, have been found at some sites. These technologies first occur in Africa, associated with the Azilian cultures, before spreading to Europe through the Ibero-Maurusian culture of Northern Africa and the Kebaran culture of the Levant. Independent discovery is not always ruled out.

III. NEOLITHIC PERIOD

v"Neolithic" means "New Stone Age." This was a period of primitive technological and social development, toward the end of the "Stone Age." The Neolithic period saw the development of early villages, agriculture, animal domestication, tools and the onset of the earliest recorded incidents of warfare. The Neolithic term is commonly used in the Old World.

vNeolithic Revolution, Neolithic Triad. 1. demographic stress; 2. proper environment; 3. technology
Domestication of sheep and goats, agriculture (grain), ground stone tools, pottery, weaving, first architecture. Change from hunter/gatherers to food production. Urban revolution.

Agriculture

vA major change, described by prehistorian Vere Gordon Childe as the "Agricultural Revolution," occurred about the 10th millennium BC with the adoption of agriculture. The Sumerians first began farming c. 9500 BC. By 7000 BC, agriculture had been developed in India and Peru separately; by 6000 BC, to Egypt; by 5000 BC, to China. About 2700 BC, agriculture had come to Mesoamerica.

vAlthough attention has tended to concentrate on the Middle East's Fertile Crescent, archaeology in the Americas, East Asia and Southeast Asia indicates that agricultural systems, using different crops and animals, may in some cases have developed there nearly as early. The development of organized irrigation, and the use of a specialized workforce, by the Sumerians, began about 5500 BC. Stone was supplanted by bronze and iron in implements of agriculture and warfare. Agricultural settlements had until then been almost completely dependent on stone tools. In Eurasia, copper and bronze tools, decorations and weapons began to be commonplace about 3000 BC. After bronze, the Eastern Mediterranean region, Middle East and China saw the introduction of iron tools and weapons.

The earliest prehistoric people were nomadic and would have camped in simple temporary structure made from branches, turf and foliage. These people were constantly on the move following herds of wild animals from place to place. Their lifestyle and method of hunting did not encourage the development of permanent structures.

Later Neolithic people enjoyed a more settled existence, but once again these early farmers used natural materials for the construction of their hut encampments which have left very little mark on today`s landscape.

The shelters were created for protection against inclement weather, wild beasts and human enemies.

Hunter and fisherman in primeval times naturally sought shelter in rock caves, and these were manifestly the earliest form of human dwellings ; tillers of the soil took cover under arbours of trees, and from them fashioned huts of wattle and daub ; while shepherd, who followed their flocks, would lie down under coverings of skins which only had to be raised on post to form tents. Here, then in caves, huts, and tents we find three primitive types of human dwellings, the three germs of later architectural developments. Nature`s caves, with their rough openings and walls and roofs of rock, inevitably suggested the raising of stone walls to carry slab of rock for roofs.

Natural arbors, again would suggest huts with tree trunks for walls and closely laid branches, covered with roofs. Huts of this character are still in use amongst primitive peoples in the village of old Jericho. Tent of sheepskins speak for themselves and are still as much in use among Bedouin Arabs other nomadic tribes as they can have been in prehistoric times such, then, were the first rough structures evolved from three natural prototypes, when man began to build dwellings for himself and temples for his god.

Among prehistoric remains of archeological interest, but of little architectural value, are monoliths, dolmens, tumuli, and dwelling. Monoliths are single upright stones, known in western France as ”menhirs,” such as those at locmariaker and carnac in Brittany, the latter of which is 63ft. hight,14ft. in diameter, and weight 260 tons. Dolmens (Bret.dol=table+ maen stone) and cromlechs ( Gael. Crom = bent+ leac =flat stone )are often used as interchangeable terms. Dolmen is the name sometimes applied to two or more upright stone supporting a horizontal slab, as the Constantine dolmen, cornwall, and the Pierre Couverte, Saumur, France; while the term Cromlech may be used for three more uprightstones, capped by an unhewn flat stone, as at Lanyon, Cornwell, Kit’s Coty House, Maidstone, and other places in England, Wales, Ireland, Northern France, the Channel Islands, Savoy,and India. These dolmen of cromlechs often stand within sacred circles of massive monoliths, supporting horizontal slabs, as at Avebury and Stonehenge, Wiltshire Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain, with its larger and smaller circles and horseshoes of mighty monoliths in local “Sarsen” stones, may have been built by one megalithic race at one period or by two races at successive periods. As to its origin and date speculation seems endless; the approximate date assigned to it by Sir Norman Lockyer is B.C.1680

Tumuli of burial mounds were probably prototypes of the pyramids in Egypt and of the beehive huts in Wales, Cornwall, Scotland, and Ireland. that at new Grange, Ireland, some what resembles the so-called treasury of Atreus, Mycenae. Lake dwellings, such as those discovered in Switzerland, Italy, and Ireland, consisted of wooden huts built on piles in the water for protection against attack.