The first built human dwellings. History of human housing When the first house appeared

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 round 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 the 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.

Apartment buildings appeared in ancient Rome. The expanding city required to accommodate an increasing number of people in a fairly limited area, so residential buildings began to grow upward. As a rule, one such house occupied an entire block, had a closed shape and a courtyard. They were called insula (island) and reached a height of up to five floors. Each floor was divided into separate apartments that were rented. The higher the floor was, the lower the rent was.

The second coming of high-rise buildings began in Europe in the 17th century. The development of industry required more and more workers and, as a consequence, the availability of cheap housing.

This trend came to Russia only two centuries later. In Moscow, the first apartment buildings appeared in 1785 - 1790. The first such three-story house was built according to the design of M.F. Kazakova on Ilyinka. An equally famous architect who built apartment buildings in Moscow at that time was Osip Bove. In 1816, on Nikolskaya Street, Beauvais built a large house three floors high. This building was intended to generate income, and its customer was the famous bookseller I.P. Glazunov. On the lower floor of the house there were shops with separate entrances, and on the upper floors there were small apartments. Galleries were made from the courtyard and each apartment had a separate entrance.

Capitalism, slowly but surely developing in Russia, was the main driving force behind the development of cities. Therefore, by the end of the nineteenth century, there was a real boom in apartment buildings, which continued until 1914. Thanks to this trend, the historical center of most large cities was formed. The customers for the construction were all classes: mid-level entrepreneurs, merchants, large industrialists, educational institutions, partnerships, joint-stock companies and even churches and monasteries. This wave of construction of apartment buildings was due to the need for housing for people of liberal professions, engineers, students, workers, and scientists. On the other hand, capital appeared that needed to be invested in something. Thus, in the summer of 1911, approximately 3,000 apartment buildings with a height of 5-7 floors were built. The Moscow authorities were preparing the sites, laying electrical cables, sewerage, and water supply. In addition, they were engaged in landscaping and cleaning up the streets. Further rent of land made it possible to recoup the costs of all of the above. Apartment buildings were very beneficial to the government, owners and tenants, since they satisfied the demand for housing from the population and replenished the city treasury through taxes from the owners of apartment buildings. Thus, in 1913, out of 47,600,000 rubles of city income, taxes paid by owners of apartment buildings and other personal real estate amounted to 7,000,000 rubles. So the apartment buildings fully justified their definition. In Russia before 1917, there were more than 600 apartment buildings. In Moscow during this period, about 40 percent of residential buildings were apartment buildings. Moreover, the larger the apartment building, the lower the cost of apartments in it.
In those days, you could rent the cheapest room for the night for 20 kopecks, and a bed for only 5 kopecks. Renting a room designed for an official with average income cost 10 - 15 rubles per month. People with income could afford to rent an apartment in an apartment building in Moscow for 30 rubles; the most profitable at that time was considered the Afremov apartment building, which was located at 19 Sadovaya Spasskaya Street. The eight-story building was built in 1904, and its could be considered a skyscraper. No less famous was the apartment building of the merchant Solodovnikov, located on Gilyarovsky Street. You could rent rooms in this house for 10 rubles a month. As for the cost of renting luxury apartments in apartment buildings, it could exceed 100 rubles. For example, in the most luxurious apartment building on Sretensky Boulevard, which belonged to an insurance company, the rent for a room was 500 rubles per month.

The resettlement of several families in one living space was considered as a forced and temporary measure. However, at the beginning of the twentieth century, after a series of revolutions, the country completely changed its political and economic course. The civil war, unrest, later active industrialization and the deterioration of the situation in the countryside led to more intensive growth of the urban population. Essentially the same principle of apartment buildings evolved into communal apartments. The densification of representatives of the former privileged classes was accompanied by the transformation of their large apartments into communal apartments. At the beginning of the first five-year plan, the need to preserve communal apartments unexpectedly received ideological justification. During these years, the idea of ​​a socialist restructuring of everyday life was actively promoted in the RSFSR. The program of its collectivization, that is, the abandonment of the family economy as the main form of organizing the private life of people, was widely discussed. In this regard, it was assumed that the individual housing of an urban family, as a legacy of capitalism, should be replaced by collective housing, in which joint consumption and collective leisure would be organized.

The front door to a communal apartment is difficult not to recognize. The number of calls, randomly scattered in the best traditions of the avant-garde, are signed with the names of the residents and the number of clicks. And God forbid you call three times if under your last name it says call twice. Of course, they will open it for you, but they will be very unhappy. So, you enter the apartment, and the first thing you see is a long corridor with a large number of electricity meters on the walls, a common telephone and wallpaper written on next to it, bicycles, sleds, a duty schedule and cleaning the floors . We go further and go into the kitchen, the space of which is divided by tables, stoves, cabinets and other kitchen utensils. The kitchen is the central hub of a communal apartment. Here, global problems of everyday life are solved, primus stoves hum and kerosene stoves smoke. To protect against thieving cats, irons are placed on pots or lids are tightly tied.

However, after fierce discussions and the resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted on May 16, 1930, which condemned the leftists for restructuring life, ordinary apartment buildings nevertheless became the main type of urban development. In conditions of an acute shortage of financial and other resources, they were built, saving on everything; in particular, low ceilings and cramped kitchens had already become fashionable. Such houses were occupied, as a rule, according to the communal principle: 1 family, 1 room. Separate apartments in the 1920s and 30s. had no more than a quarter of urban families. buildings with cramped and uncomfortable apartments. After criticism of such development projects at the 17th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in 1934, the situation improved slightly: spacious apartments with high ceilings began to be built, embodying the working class’s dream of a wonderful life under socialism.

However, in practice, the lack of housing forced the city authorities to move several families into new apartments, turning them back into communal apartments. Thus, the utopian projects for creating a new way of life and communal houses, which received official registration in 1919 in the 2nd Program of the RCP (b), in practice were embodied in the same communal apartments.

Nomenklatura houses represented a special category of housing. They had a good layout with halls and two to four large apartments per floor. Many apartments included offices and children's rooms, libraries and rooms for servants, spacious kitchens, separate bathrooms, initially large rooms - from 15 to 25, and in some places even up to 30 m², utility rooms in some houses (Verkhnyaya Maslovka, 1, d.3) - workshop for sculptors and artists.
The tradition of several families occupying one apartment continued during the war years and the first post-war decade. Only in the second half of the 1950s. In connection with the increase in the scale of housing, a qualitatively new approach to the distribution of living space has emerged. At a number of Ural, Siberian and Far Eastern enterprises, new residents began to be provided primarily with separate apartments. In September 1959 in Novosibirsk, 38.8% of workers and employees living in state houses already had them. The remaining 61.2% of workers and employees were housed in communal apartments, each of which housed an average of 3 families with 8 people. There were 4.9 square meters per resident. m of living space.

Large housing construction programs carried out in the 1960s and 70s led to improved living conditions for large sections of the urban population. A great social achievement was not only the mass relocation of citizens from dilapidated and poorly equipped housing, but also the resettlement of families living in communal apartments. In the early 1980s. About 80% of residents of the Ural, Siberian and Far Eastern cities had separate apartments in comfortable brick and panel houses. During the period of “perestroika”, the goal was to provide each family with a separate apartment by 2000, which was rather a slogan than a real prospect. According to the decree of the CPSU Central Committee “On the development of housing construction in the USSR,” a course was set for family-by-family settlement of comfortable apartments, which was supported by such ideological and scientific points that stated that the communal apartment was not a project of the Soviet government, but was a forced measure to save money during industrialization.
An appropriate production base and infrastructure was created: house-building plants and concrete factories. This made it possible to introduce millions of square meters of housing annually. The first house-building plants were created in the Glavleningradstroy system, and in 1962 they were organized in Moscow and other cities. In particular, during the 1970s in Leningrad, 942 thousand people received living space, with 809 thousand moving into new houses and 133 thousand receiving space in old houses. However, when moving into new apartments, the “shareholder” principle was often applied (one neighbor for each family). By the middle, the number of communal apartments in the central districts of Leningrad amounted to 40% of their total number. In addition, until the mid-1980s, there was a system of service (departmental) space, which made it difficult to resettle communal apartments.

With the beginning of mass housing construction, architecture finally lost its former uniqueness. Standard boxes were erected everywhere, mostly five and nine storeys high. White brick or concrete panels were used as building materials.
At the end of the last century, a new coup d'etat took place. Socialism gave way to a market economy, which radically changed the attitude and status of apartment buildings; now the treasured square meters have become private property.
At the moment, the rules in the real estate market are determined by demand, mortgage lending policies and the policies of development companies.

New technologies and materials make it possible to build higher-rise buildings, although in essence they remain the same faceless boxes in which, like an anthill, most of modern urban society lives. I can’t say that this trend is bad; mass development and cost reduction, of course, leads to the simplification of this or that object or process. But when an old mansion is demolished in the city to erect another faceless apartment tower, it becomes somehow sad.

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 acquired the ability to mine metals, his construction activities have advanced rapidly, facilitating and providing other cultural achievements.

“If 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 great 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, such as were in ancient times in Europe, and are now 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 pillars 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 the 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 serves as a complement to 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, boards, 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 ability 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.

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.

Agree, in our distant childhood we were all interested in homes in one way or another. We read about them in books and popular science magazines, watched them in movies, which means, willy-nilly, at least once in our lives, but we still imagined how great it would be to swap roles with them for a few hours, finding yourself in that distant world full of the unknown and unprecedented.

However, despite the abundance of information, we sometimes cannot answer seemingly completely simple questions. For example, about how they defended their homes, where and how they obtained food, whether they made supplies for the winter and whether they had any pets.

The article is aimed at introducing readers to the topic. After reading all the sections carefully, everyone will have a more than detailed idea of ​​what the dwellings of ancient people were like.

General information

To more clearly imagine what happened many centuries ago, let's think about the principle by which modern houses are built and decorated. Many will agree that the choice of material is primarily influenced by climate. In hot countries, you are unlikely to find buildings with thick brick (or panel) walls and additional insulation means. In turn, in the northern regions there are no bungalows and open villas.

The primitive dwellings of ancient people were also built taking into account the weather conditions of a particular region. In addition, of course, the presence of nearby bodies of water and the characteristic features of the local flora and fauna were taken into account.

Thus, modern experts claim that Paleolithic hunters in most cases settled on slightly rough, or even completely flat, terrain, in close proximity to lakes, rivers or streams.

Where can you see ancient sites?

We all know that caves are areas of the upper part of the earth's crust, located, as a rule, in mountainous regions of the planet. Today it has been established that most of them were once the dwellings of ancient people. Of course, regardless of the continent, people settled only in horizontal and gently sloping caves. In vertical ones, called mines and wells, the depth of which can reach up to one and a half kilometers, it was inconvenient to live and organize everyday life, and even very dangerous.

Archaeologists have discovered the dwellings of ancient people in different parts of our planet: Africa, Australia, Asia, Europe and the Americas.

Many caves have also been discovered on Russian territory. The most famous are Kungurskaya, Bolshaya Oreshnaya, Denisova and the whole Tavdinsky complex.

What did the ancient man's home look like from the inside?

There is a fairly common misconception that in caves the inhabitants of that time were quite warm and dry. Unfortunately, this is not so, but rather the opposite. Typically, rock faults are very cold and wet. And this is not surprising: such areas are warmed up quite slowly by the sun, and it is generally impossible to heat a huge cave in this way.

The humid air prevailing around, which in most cases is barely felt in the open air, tends to condense, falling into a closed space, surrounded on all sides by cold stone.

As a rule, the air in a cave cannot be called stale. On the contrary, there are constant drafts formed under the influence of the aerodynamic effect created by the presence of numerous passages and cracks.

As a result, we can conclude that the very first dwellings of ancient people were small, cool caves with walls constantly damp from condensation.

Was it possible to warm up by lighting a fire?

In general, making a fire in a cave, even with modern means, is a rather troublesome and not always effective task.

Why? The thing is that initially it will take a long time to choose a place protected from the wind, otherwise the fire will simply go out. Secondly, heating a cave in this way is the same as if you set yourself the goal of heating an entire stadium, armed with an ordinary electric heater. Sounds absurd, right?

In this case, one fire is actually not enough, especially considering that cold air will constantly move to your campsite from somewhere inside the stone bag.

Security measures

How did ancient people protect their homes, and was this necessary in principle? Scientists have been trying to get a definite answer to this question for a long time. It was found that in warm climates, sites were usually temporary. People found them by chasing wild animals along the paths and collecting various kinds of roots. Ambushes were set up nearby and the dead carcasses were skinned. Such houses were not guarded: raw materials were collected, rest was arranged, thirst was quenched, simple belongings were collected, and the tribe moved on.

In what is now Eurasia, most of the land was covered with a thick layer of snow. There was already a need for the improvement of a more permanent monastery. The dwelling was often won from the hyena through perseverance, deceit or cunning. During winter cold, the entrances to the cave were often blocked from the inside with stones and branches. This, first of all, was done to prevent the former owner from getting inside.

Section 6. What was inside the house

The dwellings of ancient people, photos of which can often be found in modern popular science literature, were quite simple in their design and contents.

Most often it was round or oval inside. According to scientists, on average the width rarely exceeded 6-8 meters with a length of 10-12 m. Inside, according to experts, up to 20 people could fit. Tree trunks cut down or broken in the neighboring forest were used for beautification and insulation. It was not uncommon for such material to flow down the river.

Often the dwellings of ancient people were not a place in a cave, but real huts. The skeleton of the future house was represented by tree trunks inserted into pre-dug recesses. Later, intertwined branches were placed on top. Of course, due to the constantly blowing wind, it was quite cold and damp inside, so the fire had to be maintained both day and night. By the way, scientists were surprised to discover that tree trunks, which play a key role in construction, were reinforced with heavy stones for safety reasons.

There were no doors at all. They were replaced by a hearth built from rock fragments, which not only heated the home, but also served as reliable protection from predators.

Of course, in the process of evolution, not only people changed, but also their places of residence.

Houses of ancient Palestinians

In Palestine, modern scientists have managed to excavate the most archaeologically important cities.

It has been established that these settlements were mainly built on hills and were well fortified both outside and inside. Very often one of the walls was protected by a cliff or a fast water flow. The city was surrounded by a wall.

Like many others, this culture, when choosing a location, was guided by the presence of a nearby source, the water from which was suitable for drinking and for irrigating crops. In case of a siege, local residents built unique underground reservoirs located under the homes of wealthier townspeople.

Wooden houses were considered a rarity. Preference was mainly given to stone and adobe buildings. In order to protect the room from soil dampness, the structure was built on a stone foundation.

The hearth was located in the central room directly under a special hole in the ceiling. Only the wealthiest citizens could afford a second floor and a large number of windows.

Dwellings of the upper Mesopotamia

Not everyone knows that some of the houses here were two- or even several-story. For example, in the chronicles of Herodotus one can find mention of buildings with three or even four tiers.

The dwellings were covered with a spherical dome, which was sometimes very high. There was a hole at the top that allowed air to penetrate inside. By the way, it should be noted that there were almost never windows on the first floor. And there may be several explanations for this factor. Firstly, local residents tried to protect themselves from external enemies in this way. Secondly, religion did not allow them to flaunt the features of their private lives. Only fairly narrow doors and loopholes, located at the level of human height, went outside.

Above, terraces were built on brick pillars, which performed two functions at once. First of all, they were built so that the owner could relax there, hiding away from human eyes. But that's not all. This area made it possible to protect the roof from direct sunlight, and therefore from overheating. On the upper terrace there were most often open galleries planted with flowers and exotic plants.

In this area, clay, reed and bitumen were considered the main building materials. Sometimes special brick or mosaic inlays were made in wooden supports to protect the wood from the ubiquitous ants.

Dwelling of ancient Indian culture

The ancient city of Mohenjo-Daro, located in India, was once surrounded by a powerful wall. There was also a sewer system, which was directed from individual houses into the citywide sewer canal, built under the pavements.

In general, they preferred to build houses from baked brick, which was considered the most durable and therefore reliable. The outer walls were more than massive, and also had a slight inward slope.

Documents about how ancient people built homes indicate that wealthy locals had a gatekeeper's room in their homes. There was almost always a small central courtyard, into which, for the purpose of additional lighting, numerous windows on the first and second floors certainly looked out.

The yard was paved with bricks, and there was a sewer canal right next to it. As a rule, a luxurious terrace was arranged on the flat roof of the house.

Ancient Greek house

Scientists have found that during the Trojan culture, most dwellings were square or rectangular in shape. There may have been a small portico in front. In a room or part of a common room that served as a bedroom, special raised platforms were made for beds.

As a rule, there were two outbreaks. One was needed for heating, the second for cooking.

The walls were also not quite ordinary. The lower 60 cm were laid out of stone, and a little higher raw brick was used. The flat roof was not supported by anything additional.

The poor preferred to live in round or oval houses, because... it was easier to heat them, and there was no need to have several rooms. The rich in their homes allocated space not only for bedrooms, but also for dining rooms and storage rooms.