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PRE - HISTORIC ARCHITECTURE

The term prehistory references the period before history was written down, prior to any kind of written
explanation of culture and civilization. This discussion covers architecture during the period we call the
Late New Stone Age. This is a very small segment or cross-section of prehistory. Prehistory basically
covers the Old Stone Age, Middle Stone Age, and New Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic )
periods, as well as portions of the Bronze and Iron Ages. These ages refer to the materials with which
tools were made during those periods. So the earliest tools were made of stone and then people
developed bronze and iron metal tools. The Three-Age System was developed by Danish antiquarian
Christian Jürgensen Thomsen, who was able to use the Danish national collection of antiquities and the
records of their finds as well as reports from contemporaneous excavations to provide a solid empirical
basis for the system. He showed that artifacts could be classified into types and that these types varied
over time in ways that correlated with the predominance of stone, bronze or iron implements and
weapons.

How did people live and build before this period? An architectural typology references a building type is
usually an architectural form related to a function, such as train stations, airports, churches, schools, etc.
It involves the same type of architectural form repeated for a specific use. Before the Old Stone Age
(100,000-50,000 years ago), there were two basic typologies – caves and temporary dwellings.
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Caves were natural rock-cut shelters. They were not man-made. They were natural forms usually
created by the erosion of water in natural bedrock. These are the earliest examples of human dwellings.
They had irregular forms as a result instead of any kind of regular or especially purposeful geometry.

Paleolithic Period
The Paleolithic Age, or Old Stone Age, spanned from around 30,000 BCE until 10,000 BCE and produced
the first accomplishments in human creativity. Due to a lack of written records from this time period,
nearly all of our knowledge of Paleolithic human culture and way of life comes from archaeologic and
ethnographic comparisons to modern hunter-gatherer cultures. The Paleolithic lasted until the retreat of
the ice, when farming and use of metals were adopted.

Paleolithic Period, also spelled Palaeolithic Period, also called Old Stone Age, ancient cultural stage, or
level, of human development, characterized by the use of rudimentary chipped stone tools.

The oldest examples of Paleolithic dwellings are shelters in caves, followed by houses of wood, straw,
and rock.
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Mesolithic Period

The term "Mesolithic art" refers to all arts and crafts created between the end of the Paleolithic Ice Age
(10,000 BCE) and the beginning of farming, with its cultivation and animal husbandry. ... In contrast,
Neolithic man generally lived in settlements, cultivated crops, domesticated animals and practiced
agriculture.

The Mesolithic Period, or Middle Stone Age, is an archaeological term describing specific cultures that
fall between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic Periods. While the start and end dates of the Mesolithic
Period vary by geographical region, it dated approximately from 10,000 BCE to 8,000 BCE.

The Paleolithic was an age of purely hunting and gathering, but toward the Mesolithic period the
development of agriculture contributed to the rise of permanent settlements. The later Neolithic period
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is distinguished by the domestication of plants and animals. Some Mesolithic people continued with
intensive hunting, while others practiced the initial stages of domestication. Some Mesolithic
settlements were villages of huts , others walled cities.

During the Mesolithic period, humans developed cave paintings, engravings, and ceramics to reflect
their daily lives.