eric 's Bookmarks tagged du →  View Popular

Shelters and habitats

Around 2 million years before present, Homo habilis is believed to have constructed first man-made structure in East Africa, consisting of simple arrangements of stones to hold branches of trees in position. A similar stone circular arrangement believed to be around 500,000 years old was discovered at Terra Amata, near Nice (France). Several human habitats dating back to the Stone Age have been discovered in different parts of the earth, including:

• A tent-like structure inside a cave near the Grotte du Lazaret , Nice, France.


• A structure with roof supported with timber, discovered in Dolni Vestonice, Czechoslovakia, dates to around 23,000 BC. The walls were made of packed clay blocks and stones.
• Many huts made of mammoth bones were found in Eastern Europe and Siberia. The people who made these huts were specialised mammoth hunters. Examples have been found along the Dniepr river valley of Ukraine, including near Chernihiv, in Moravia (in the Czech Republic) and in southern Poland.


• An animal hide tent dated to around 15,000 to 10,000 BC (in the Magdalenian) was discovered at Plateau Parain, France.


• Megalithic tombs, multi-chambered, and dolmens, single-chambered, were graves with a huge stone slab stacked over other similarly large stone slabs. They have been discovered all across Europe, and were built in the Neolithic. Several tombs with copper and bronze tools have also been discovered, illustrating the problems of attempting to define periods based on technology.

Schick, Kathy D.; and Nicholas Toth (1993). Making Silent Stones Speak: Human Evolution and the Dawn of Technology. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-671-69371-9.

Scarre, Christopher (ed.) (1988). Past Worlds: The Times Atlas of Archaeology. London: Times Books. ISBN 0-7230-0306-8.

The Grotte du Lazaret, Nice, France.

The text below is from 'The Prehistory of Europe' 1980 by Patricia Phillips


The Le Lazaret cave contains a sequence of deposits, but the presumed living floor lies in the upper levels. The diagram (after de Lumley, 1969, Une Cabane acheuléene dans la grotte de Lazaret, Fig 54) shows the ground plan of the Le Lazaret 'tent', southern France (inset shows the protected area of the cave)



It dates to the third stage of the Riss glaciation in conventional terms, while aminoacid tests have produced dates c. 150 000 B.P. De Lumley has published detailed distribution maps of the position of stones, flint tools and debris, bone, charcoal and shell, and suggested that the Acheulian hunters created a shelter about 11m X 3.5m at one side of the cave.




The bottom of the shelter wall is defined by rows of stones, including possible post-supports. A skin curtain and roof may have been draped over the posts. The distribution of finds suggested entrances and internal compartments, with two hearths in the larger compartment and none in the smaller. The presence of tiny sea shells, which would have been attached to seaweed, and of the foot bones of fur-bearing animals like wolf, fox, lynx and panther, around the hearth and in the smaller compartment, may indicate bedding. The tools include hand axes and choppers, and lots of tools made of pebbles, of Upper Acheulian type.



Study of the pollen contained in coprolites suggests that the cimate had been colder than today, with stands of pine trees in the vicinity of the cave. The shelter would have provided protection from wind and cold, and represents an attempt to achieve a 'home'.