Prehistoric Architecture

Aubrey Hole

A ring of fifty-six Chalk pits at Stonehenge, named after John Aubrey.

Heel Stone

A single large block of sarsen stone standing within the Avenue outside the entrance of the Stonehenge earthwork.

Paleolithic Period (Old Stone Age)

c. 35,000-9000/8000 BCE -Small hunter-gatherer societies -clans/family groups -small, organic, seasonal structures -Use of stone tools

Catal Huyuk Shrine House

Anatolia, c. 6500-5700 BCE

Neolithic Houses of China

Banpo, China, c. 3500 BCE

Catal Huyuk, Turkey c. 6500 - 5700 BCE

Neolithic City. Unfortified, dense with dwellings without streets. Entries into buildings were on the roof tops and there was high openings in the walls for ventilation. Dwellings were made of mud-brick walls and a post-&-lintel timber framework.

Neolithic

New Stone Age

Paleolithic

Old Stone Age

megalithic

Prehistoric architecture made from large stones or boulders

Stonehenge

Salisbury Plain, England, c. 2900-1400 BCE

Stonehenge Plan

Salisbury Plain, England, c. 2900-1400 BCE

Stone Alignment

Several rows of stones.

Skara Brae, Orkney Islands, Scotland, c. 3100 - 2500 BCE

This site used to contain a series of Paleolithic camp sites before the village. Shelters were made of midden and thatch.

Paleolithic Hut

Were built with landscape materials. They were bind by tree branches with braided grass on top. They would also have stones surrounding the outside of the hut and the hut would have a circular or oval shape.

corbeling

When rocks are brought in closer together to form an arch or "tower" until the top can be closed off using a capstone.

Megalith Tomb

Er-Mane, Carnac, France, c. 4200 BCE

Cave Paintings at Lascaux

France, 15,000 BCE(Paleolithic)

Stonehenge, Salisbury Plain, England c. 2900 - 1400 BCE

Is a Cromlech. Made in 4 stages, and has a round ditch around it. The ditch was a perfect circle. 100 feet in diameter. Has a post and lintel system. Between the two cromlechs of post and lintels there was a circle of blue stones.

Two earliest known urban communities

Jericho and Catal Huyuk

Megaliths

Large stone, often used in Neolithic Monuments.

mudbrick

Made from sun-dried clay, or clay-like earth

intramural burial

graves within a settlement, ie, under the floors of houses.

Corbeling in Passage Grave

-Constructed primarily with post and lintel -This disperses weight of the mountain from middle of lentil

Stonehenge England c. 2900 - 1400 BCE Neolithic Period

-Constructed with large Sarsen stones, hard sandstone -Smaller Bluestone imported from Wales -Possible cremation site -*Solar Orientation*: Points to rising sun on summer solstice and setting sun on winter solstice

Walls at Catal Huyuk were painted

-One painting could depict a map

Çatal Hüyük Turkey c. 6500 - 5700 BCE Neolithic Period

-Stone foundation, adobe superstructure -Enter through roof - All the walls are connected

Lascaux Cave Dordogne, France c. 15,000 BCE Paleolithic Period

-paintings were part of a system, NOT at the mouth of the cave, they were deep in the cave system. -Could depict the hunts, but there isn't evidence of the animals in the caves, meaning they probably didn't eat them. -May be ritualistic

Dolmen (trilithon)

2 upright posts capped by a single lintel.

Cap Stone

A stone fixed on top of something, like a wall or tomb.

Catal Huyuk

Anatolia, c. 6500-5700 BCE

Mesolithic

Middle Stone Age

Longhouse

Multifamily buildings during the Neolithic Era, usually made out of timber wood. As early as 6000-5000 BCE. 20-30 people could live in them. Hearth was outside, and there is only one door. House divided in 3 sections - work, sleep/eat, and grain.

Hall of the Bulls, Caves at Lascaux, France, c. 15000 - 13000 BCE

Paleolithic cave paintings. Paintings inside of the cave was made from minerals that were cut out of rock and then crushed into a powder and then was mixed with animal fat.

Menhir

Stone put in the landscape, vertically by humans. Ex: Carnac France

post-and-lintel

Style of construction where one horizontal member, lintel, is supported by two vertical members, posts.

Mammoth-bone houses Ukraine c. 16,000-10,000 BCE Paleolithic Period

bones, pine poles, animal hides, hearths, floors stamped down and colored with ochre.

Neolithic Period (New Stone Age)

c. 9000/8000-3000 BCE -agriculture, domestication of animals, settled village life -Used ground stone tools, like millstones, indicating that they ate grains. -Domesticated animals, developed agriculture -Permanent Dwellings