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.





