David Andrade

Professor Zagaroli

Comparing Era’s

Paleolithic architecture is extremely old. They mainly lived in pit houses that where common in eastern Europe. They featured a oval like shape and has a central post hole indicating the existence of a roof. Its constructed by digging out some soil and surround it with mammoth bones for support. Paleolithic peoples mainly used stone tools for hunting and construction. They also constructed huts using animal hide and their respective bones along with tree branches.

Mesolithic architecture was more advanced as humans began domesticating animals and creating farms for food. Many of the buildings constructed during this time where made using post-and-lintel systems where timber was the roof that spanned the room and the post supported the structure. The post where usually filled with mud and woven branches that would create and sturdy structure. In northern Europe some of the structures where created using masonry and those have survived the elements until today. The buildings are made up of flat stones stacked up but they do not have mortar but sloped slightly to lock in place.

With the Neolithic age stone ceremonial structures began to appear. Those include Stonehenge and the menhir alignment in Britain and France respectively. These structures are also called megaliths. Another megalithic structure would be the various tombs around Europe such as the Newgrange tomb site in Ireland that has some of the most complex system of graves known today. The burial chambers are made of large rocks that create and a round space. The construction rocks where engraved with designs of circles and spirals. There are many narrow passages that lead to the graves. Stonehenge is made of a post-and-lintel system that creates and circle surrounded by a ditch inside the circle is another group of stones that form a horseshoe type shape.

Overall the three periods I choose to discuss highlight how human advancements in either choice of tools or new engineering feats building new structures advanced their civilization. Also, it demonstrates the changes in materials used going from animal hides to mud and wood to stone. These designs affected how its respective peoples lived and ability to survive. And contribute to the advancement of humanity from their time.