HOA 1.

HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE

MODULE 1. PREHISTORIC ARCHITECTURE

INTRODUCTION
History of Architecture
Is a record of man’s effort to build beautifully. It traces the origin, growth and decline of
Architectural Styles which have prevailed lands and ages.

Historic Styles of Architecture

The particular method, the characteristics, manner of design which prevails at a certain place
and time.

INFLUENCING FACTORS
Te particular design of a building, from planning to walling, columns, openings as in doors
and windows, roofing, moulding and ornaments, all of these designs are influenced by the following
factors:

a. Geographical
Pinpoints the location of a particular country. It describes whether it is near the sea,
an island, on the mountains, deserts and others.
b. Geological
Describes the materials found in the locality. The character and composition of the earth
and the contour of the ground. Materials like stones, trees, reeds, bamboo, clay for bricks,
marble, metals, all influence the character of the buildings.
c. Climatic
The prevailing weather in the country. If there is much sunshine or little rain, if there
are winters with much snow.
d. Religion
This is the emotional temperament and spiritual tendencies of the peoples in a particular
country. If they are Pagans they build temples for numerous gods, if they are Christians
they build churches with altars. Muslims build mosques.

Pagan - A person holding religious beliefs other than those of the main or recognized religions.
Pagans believe that nature is sacred and that the natural cycles of birth, growth and death
observed in the world around us carry profoundly spiritual meanings. Human beings are seen
as part of nature, along with other animals, trees, stones, plants and everything else that
is of this earth.

e. Historical
The background of the people as a whole. Were there wars in the past? If so, buildings would
have been ruined and new structures built.
f. Social and Political
How the people lived and governed. Whether they are hostile, friendly, ruled by a King or
under democratic rule.

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 HOA 1. HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE

PREHISTORIC
Of, pertaining to, or existing in the time prior to the recording of human events, knowledge
of which is gained mainly through archaeological discoveries, study, and research.

PREHISTORIC ARCHITECTURE
There were cultures and civilizations that lived before the time of writing and also before
recorded history. Only a few pieces of evidence were found about the earliest dwellings of ancient
people, and how they survived and lived.

For a million years, humans lived off hunting, food gathering, and fishing. We once labeled
these people savages or barbarians, and then we called them primitives. More recently we call
them hunter-gatherers, as if all they do is obsess about food acquisition. But the Kung, who
have lived in the Kalahari Desert in Botswana for hundreds of thousands of years, spend only
about 40 percent of their time hunting and gathering. The rest of the time, they do what most
of us might do: they socialize, dance, cook, and rest.

STONE AGE
The earliest known period of human culture, preceding the Bronze Age and the Iron Age and
characterized by the use of stone implements and weapons.

CLASSIFICATION OF STONE AGE

The Stone Age or Primitive Age consists of three periods.
1. Paleolithic Era | Old Stone Age
2.5 Million years ago
30,000 BC to 20,000 BC
2. Mesolithic Era | Middle Stone Age
15000 years ago
20,000 BC to 9,500BC
3. Neolithic Era | New Stone Age
11000 years ago
9,500 BC to 4,500BC

Paleolithic Era
 The Paleolithic Era or the Old Stone Age is considered the longest Era of the three Ages.
It extends from 2.5 million years ago to 15000 years ago.
 In this age, man was a hunter and a food gatherer moving from one place to another in small
groups.
 It is distinguished by the development of stone tools.
 Humans used primitive tools made of stone, wood, and bones. Also, they discovered fire which
was used for their protection, cooking, and hunting.

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Mesolithic Era
 The Mesolithic Era of the Stone Age comes after the end of the Paleolithic Era.
 Humans began to raise animals for their food. Forests began to develop and humans started
to settle near sources of water. They were relying on constructing temporary structures
depending on the season.
 Therefore, timber and other forest materials gave rise to new developments, unlike the use
of bone and skins in the Paleolithic era. They began to build shelters from tree trunks
and leaves.

Neolithic Era
 The Neolithic Era existed between 15000 – 11000 years ago. Further developments took place,
where people utilized mud-brick to construct houses.

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 HOA 1. HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE

PRIMITIVE DWELLINGS
1. Cave
Caves are the oldest and most common type of early human living spaces that provide natural
protection. They are mostly natural underground cave spaces and are large enough for humans
to accommodate. The first masonry dwellings were natural caves which Stone Age Man enlarged
by erecting a pile of rocks opposite the entrance.

2. Hut
The women build the huts that, in the shape of upside-down baskets, are made out of a frame
of saplings and clad with leaves. Women make the huts around a common campfire, usually under
the shade of a large tree. The huts are not really to live in, since people tend to live mainly
outdoors, but serve as storage areas for tools and as shade on a hot day.

3. Mammoth-Bone Structures
a. Molodova
Wood framework is covered with skins, held in place by rough oval mammoth bones.

b. Mezhirich
It consists of foundation walls of mammoth jaws and long bones, capped with skulls. And
roofed with tree branches, overlaid by tusks.

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4. Pit Houses
Pit houses were shallow depressions in the ground, sometimes also surrounded by mammoth bones
and tusks. They were dug into the ground providing insulation and protection, both from the
animals and weather conditions.

5. Tents
Made from animal skins stretched over a frame of wood or mammoth tusks. The bones of mammoths
were used to keep the roof in place and to pin down the tent at its base. Other bones were ground
down to provide fuel for warmth and cooking.

6. Beehive Hut
Beehive house, primitive type of residence designed by enlarging a simple stone hemisphere,
constructed out of individual blocks, to provide greater height at the centre.

7. Shielings
Is a hut or collection of huts on a seasonal pasture high in the hills, once common in wild
or sparsely populated places in Scotland. Usually rectangular with a doorway on the south side
and few or no windows, they were often constructed of dry stone or turf.

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 HOA 1. HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE

Primitive houses usually had only one room, but the development of more complex civilizations
led to subdivisions for the separate functions of eating, sleeping, and social life.

1. Iraqi Marshland Mudhif

A Mudhif is a traditional reed house made by the Madan people (also known as Marsh Arabs)
in the swamps of southern Iraq.
 Covered with split reed mats. Built on a reed platform to prevent settlement.

2. American Cabin
 Cabin of stripped logs sealed with clay, with a clay-lined chimney and roof of bark
or shingles.

3. Indian House
 Built of poles with palm-leaf thatch.

4. Kickapoo Indian Wigwam

The Kickapoo people believed in a supreme god named Kisiihat, who lived in the sky. The
spirits were believed to be tobacco, fire, the sky, and the four winds.
 Rush mats over a wooden frame, with animal-skin door.

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 HOA 1. HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE

5. Sumatran House
Sumatra, Western Indonesia
 Built of timber and palm leaves
 The fenced pen underneath is for livestock

6. Eskimo Igloo
Iglu in Inuktitut, meaning house.
 Is a winter dwelling made of snow. Historically, Inuit across the Arctic lived in igloos
before the introduction of modern, European-style homes.
 Hard-packed snow blocks built up spirally.

7. Nigerian Hut
 Mud walls and roof of palm leaves

8. Cornish Cottage
Cornish is an ethnic group native to, or associated with Cornwall and a recognized national
minority in the United Kingdom.
 Granite walls and chimney thatch roof

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9. Annamese Wooden Framed Hut

Annamese is a native or inhabitant of Vietnam.
 Woven bamboo walls and roof of leaves.

10. Brazilian Indian Hut

 Palm leaves and wood with shaded veranda

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 HOA 1. HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE

MEGALITHIC ARCHITECTURE
Preserve remains of monument made partially or wholly of giant stones are found on islands or
near the sea coast of the mainland.
Megalith
A very large stone used as found or roughly dressed, especially in ancient construction work.

THE MOST COMMON MEGALITHIC STRUCTURES

1. Menhir ( Monolith )
A prehistoric monument consisting of an upright megalith, usually standing alone but
sometimes aligned with others.

Monolith
A single block of stone of considerable size, often in the form of an obelisk or column.

Example:
a. Menhir De Broye

b. The Ring of Brodgar, Orkney, Scotland.

2. Dolmen
A prehistoric monument consisting of two or more large upright stones supporting a horizontal
stone slab, found especially in Britain and France and usually regarded as a tomb.

Example:
a. Crucuno Dolmen, Carnac, France

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 HOA 1. HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE

b. Portal Dolmen, Pentre Ifan, Wales.

3. Cromlech
A circular arrangement of megaliths enclosing a dolmen or burial mound.

A circle made of stones arranged vertically, often around a tomb or place of worship. Cromlechs
were erected in the Neolithic and Bronze Age, most often in the areas of Brittany, England
and Ireland, but also spread to other regions of Europe, Africa and Asia. The first of them
appeared in the second half of the fourth millennium BC. It were most likely a place of
worship and tribal gatherings. They were often orientated along the rising or setting sun
or moon at certain times of the year. After 1500 BC their construction was stopped. The
reason may be migration movements or the emergence of new religions.

Example:
a. Almendres Cromlech, Portugal

b. Stonhenge, Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England

 This consists of a complex of Sarsen stones and smaller Bluestones.

 Outermost was a ring of large monoliths of Sarsen stones capped with Lintels.
 Next was a ring of smaller Bluestones which in turn encircled a horseshoe of Trilithons
with the open facing the east. The horseshoe consisted of five Lintel-Topped pairs of
largest Sarsens, each weighed 45 to 50 tons.

Henge
A circular arrangement of vertically oriented wooden posts or stones.

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 HOA 1. HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE

a. Sarsen Stones
Type of Silcrete Rock which is found scattered naturally across southern England.
The outermost setting of Stonehenge, if completed, was a circle of 30 upright sarsens,
capped by horizontal lintel stones all carefully shaped. When freshly worked, the
surface of the sarsens would have appeared much brighter and whiter than the grey
stones you see at Stonehenge today.
b. Trilithon
An ancient stone monument consisting of two upright megaliths carrying a third as a
lintel.
c. Bluestones
Is the term used to refer to the smaller stones at Stonehenge. These are of varied geology
but all came from the Preseli Hills in south-west Wales. Although they may not appear
blue, they do have a bluish tinge when freshly broken or when wet.
They weigh between 2 and 5 tons each.
d. Lintels
There are only six remaining lintels of the outer sarsen circle in place at Stonehenge,
but if it was ever completed, there would have been an unbroken ring of stone, 30.00
m. in diameter, suspended 4.00 m. above.
Each lintel is locked to its supporting upright sarsens with a mortise and tenon joint,
and to its neighbours by tongue and groove joints – techniques more commonly found in
woodworking.

Altar Stone
Partially buried beneath two of the fallen stones of the largest trilithon lies the
Altar Stone. This is the largest of the non-sarsen stones, a large slab of greenish
Old Red Sandstone. It is not known whether the Altar Stone originally lay flat as an
altar-like slab or if it stood upright.
Heel Stone
This huge unshaped boulder of hard sarsen stone stands in isolation surrounded by a
small circular ditch.

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 HOA 1. HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE

BUILDING STONEHENGE
Brute Strength
Some of the stones used in building Stonehenge were apparently hauled laboriously across
Salisbury Plain on sledges and rollers by several hundred people.

Sinking the Stone

Sarsen stones from the Marlborough Downs were lowered into deep pits with one sloping side.
Primitive hauling apparatus then raised them upright.

Raising the Lintel

The lintel stone was raised on a cradle of timber scaffolding, and holes cut into it fitted
projections on the waiting uprights - a mortise and tenon joint.

4. Passage Grave ( Tumuli )

A megalithic tomb of the Neolithic and early Bronze Ages found in the British Isles and
Europe consisting of a roofed burial chamber and narrow entrance passage covered by a tumulus.
They are believed to have been used for successive family or clan burials spanning a number
of generations. Also called chamber grave.

Tumulus
An artificial mound of earth or stone, especially over an ancient grave. Also called barrow.

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 HOA 1. HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE

Example:
a. Newgrange, Ireland
 Newgrange is a Passage Grave – a type of Megalithic ( large stone) Tomb consisting of
a narrow passage leading to a chamber where human remains were found.
 Largest megalithic Tomb in Ireland
 One of the most impressive stone structures ever built. It is older than the Pyramids
in Egypt or Stonehenge in England.

The passage is long and narrow being 19 meters in length. The passage walls are made up
of large stones placed upright – these are called Orthostats. There are 21 orthosats lining
the right of the passage and 22 on the left.

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EVOLUTION OF HOUSES
Permanent buildings in pre-dynastic Egypt and the ancient Near East were of two kinds, possibly
derived from earlier temporary shelters.
a. Single-cell type, beehive shaped, round or oval in plan
b. Multi-celled collections of rectangular rooms

THE LATE MESOLITHIC AND EARLY NEOLITHIC PERIODS

A. DWELLINGS
The transition to rectangular, mud-brick houses also began in this period and continued into
the Neolithic Period.

1. BEIDHA
The first huts at Beidha, in Southern Jordan, were curvilinear in the Natufian tradition.
 they were semi-subterraean, and up to 4.00 m. in diameter.
 the dwellings and storerooms were grouped in clusters within walled courtyards
 the whole village was surrounded by a stone wall.

2. IMIRIS GORA

Houses of the Shulaverie Culture, Imiris Gora, in Transcaucasia

 round or oval
 3.00 m. to 4.50 m. in diameter
 were built of mud-brick on stone foundations

3. KHIROKITIA
The Khirokitia culture, of the aceramic Neolithic period in Cyprus, built round houses in
3.00 m. to 8.00 m. in diameter.

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4. AIN MALLAHA
At Ain Mallaha, near Lake Ullen, Israel 9000-8000 BC, there were about fifty (50) drystone
huts on an open site of 2000 sq.m., most of them circular, semi-subterranean and rock-lined,
from 3.00 m. to 9.00 m. in diameter.

Beehive
 constructed of reeds or matting
 supported on posts

Huts
 dug into the bank on the upper side to a depth of about 1.30 m.
 entrances were located on the lower side.
 some of the huts had stone-paved floors, and one had walls finished with lime plaster
painted with red ochre.
 the settlement had a population of two and three hundred.
 similar huts were found at Wadi Fallah and Nahal Oren, and at Badha in Southern Jordan.

The Village of Khirokitia

 comprised about a thousand houses and was approached by stone-paved road
 lower part of the walls were made of local limestone and the domed superstructure of
pise or mud-brick
 some houses had double walls, the outer leaf acting as retaining wall.

Retaining Wall
A wall of treated timber, masonry, or concrete for holding in place a mass of earth. A retaining
wall can fail by overturning, sliding, or settling. Also called breast wall.

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5. ARPACHIYAH
Beehive-shaped Tholoi were built in the Mesopotamian lowlands during the Halaf period
( Neolithic ).

Arpachiyah Dwellings
 dwellings were keyhole-shaped in plan
 walls up to 2.00 m. thick
 rectangular anterooms were up to 19.00 m. long
 domed chambers up to 10.00 m. across.
Anteroom
An outer room that leads to a larger, more important room, often used as a waiting area.

6. HACILAR VI
 Rectangular dwellings were built of mud-bricks on stone foundations.
 No complete house plans have survived, but they appear to have been multi-roomed,
plastered internally and painted in cream and red bands.
 The dwellings were close-packed with access by way of the roofs.

7. MERIMDE
Western edge of the Delta in Lower Egypt, there is an evidence of a village of huts which
which were horseshoe on plan, 5.00 m. to 6.00 m. across.
 they were constructed from a framework of posts and covered with reed matting.
 the huts were aligned in rows and some of them may have had fenced yards.

8. HAMMAMIYA
The Badarian site of Hammamiya in Upper Egypt consisted of a number of hut circles which
included storage and living rooms up to 2.00 m. in diameter, and sunk into the ground to
a depth of about 1.00 m.

9. NAQADA
An Amratian site of Naqada in Upper Egypt, consisted of similar group of mud and reed huts
with the Badarian site of Hammamiya.

10. CATAL HÜYÜK

A Neolithic settlement in Anatolia, dated 6500–5000 BCE. One of the world’s earliest cities,
it had mud-brick fortifications and houses, frescoed shrines, a fully developed agriculture,
and extensive trading in obsidian, the chief material for tool-making.

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Anatolia
A vast plateau between the Black, Mediterranean, and Aegean Seas, synonymous with the
peninsula of Asia Minor; today comprises most of Turkey.

 The city of Catal Huyuk, at the foot of the Taurus Mountains in Anatolia, was continuously
occupied.
 Extended over 13 hectare
 Supported a population of 4000-6000 people.
 Some 128 buildings have been excavated, and they are mainly rectangular single-roomed
houses.
 Each house is about 25 sq.m. with plastered walls and floors.
 The floors were covered with straw mats and the walls were decorated with simple geometric
designs.
 Access was by ladder from the roof.

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 HOA 1. HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE

B. SHRINES AND TEMPLES

The Early Neolithic Period was marked almost everywhere by a change from round to rectangular
buildings built of mud. Where shrine-like buildings emerged early in the evolutionary sequence
they were usually planned in the same way as dwellings, but were made larger and were more
elaborately decorated. By the end of the Neolithic Period these shrines had evolved as precursors
of Mesopotamian temple architecture.

1. JERICHO
A number of shrine buildings were found at Jericho.
 a small room with niche in which was placed a standing stone, may have been a cult room.
 another had a portico which led to vestibule and inner chamber containing a pair of
stone pillars symmetrically disposed about the axis of entry.

Niche
Decorative recess set into a wall for the purpose of displaying a statue, vase, font, or
other object.
Cult
A system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object.
Portico
A porch having a roof supported by columns, often leading to the entrance of a building.

Vestibule
A small entrance hall between the outer door and the interior of a house or building

2. YASA DEPE
 this was larger and had two rooms.
 the outer rooms decorated with wall paintings and contained with a ritual hearth.
 the inner room had colonnades of wooden pillars on the flank walls.
 the doorway was opposite the altar, which was decorated with geometric wall paintings
in brown, red, and white.

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Colonnade
A series of regularly spaced columns supporting an entablature and usually one side of a
roof structure.

3. TEPE GAWRA
Tepe Gawra boasted an important sequence of temple buildings similar to those at Eridu.
There was a round building 18.00 m. in diameter containing seventeen rooms within its outer
walls, which were over a meter thick.

4. DASHLIJI
Dashliji Depe was like at Yasa Depe but the Shrine was painted in black and red.

5. ERIDU
Is the oldest known settlement on the southern Mesopotamian alluvium. Seventeen temples
have survived and are superimposed once upon another, thus raising the later buildings to
a considerable height.

6. DJEITUN
A shrine-like building, similar in layout but twice as large as the houses, was found in
Djeitun, and there were similar houses and shrines at Pessejik.
Where the floors and walls were decorated with polychrome paintings of animals, and with
geometric motifs.

PREPARED BY: AR. W.FERNANDEZ