The document provides an overview of prehistoric architecture from the Paleolithic era to early civilizations. It discusses the types of dwellings and structures used in different prehistoric periods, including huts, tents, cave dwellings, beehive huts, and structures made from materials like wood and stone. Specific prehistoric sites discussed include Stonehenge, tumuli/burial mounds, lake dwellings in Switzerland and Ireland, gallery graves, and stone circles. Catal Huyuk, one of the world's first permanent settlements located in modern-day Turkey, is also summarized.

1. PREHISTORICARCHITECTURE
B. ARCHITECTURE
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE ( AR-123)
NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY - HAMIRPUR

2. Pre - historic Period :
Neolithic (10,000 BC)
➢ work as farmers .
➢ Live in permanent villages
Use domesticated and
animals.
➢ Large villages .
➢ Increased status for males
Warriors assert power over
others.
➢ More personal possessions
New technologies .
Early Civilization (3,000
BC)
➢ Priests and noble.
➢ Merchants and artisans.
➢ Peasants.
➢ Slaves .
➢ Rise of cities Organized
government.
➢ Job specification -Growth of
social disease .
➢ System of writing.
➢ Trade Complex religion .
Paleolithic (20,00,000 BC)
➢ Hunters and gatherers
Nomadic.
➢ Simple tools and
weapons.
➢ Use of fire.
➢ Spoken language .
➢ Burial of dead .
➢ Belief in a spiritual world
Creation of cave
paintings.

3. ➢ The term "prehistory" was coined by French scholars, referring to the time before people
recorded history in writing.
➢ This is the longest period in the past of modem man (homo sapiens) that lasted about
➢ 400,000 years.
➢ History is the period of recorded events of man. History refers to the time after invention
of writing. The history of the world is the memory of the past experience of Homo
sapiens around the world, a that experience has been preserved, largely in written
records.
Pre - historic Period :

4. Factors influencing Architecture:
➢ Geography.
➢ Geology.
➢ Climate.
➢ Religion.
➢ Social and political.
➢ History.

5. ORIGIN:
➢ They require only the simplest kind of buildings ,though the purposes
which they served were the same as those of later times in civilized
communities.
➢ A hut for shelter, a shrine for some sort of worship , a stockade for
defence, a cairn or mound over the grave of the chief or the hero, were
provided out of the simplest materials, and these often of a perishable
nature.
➢ There were mainly three type of primitive dwellings:
★ Caves: or rocks of those occupied in hunting or fishing.
★ Huts: for agriculture.
★ Tents: for those such as shepherds who led a pastoral and nomadic life.

6. DWELLINGS IN PREHISTORY

7. Huts
Huts of the New Stone Age ( Neolithic
Age : Man using polished stone. )
The Hut was a simple lean-to of
branches and braken against a rock
or Earth wall.
Beehive
Beehive huts are of dry stone walls
of Bronze Age.
The stone roof was usually covered
with a thatch of braken and turf.

8. The primitive hut
The primitive hut of Middle Stone Age
(Mesolithic Age) with coverings of animal
skin raised on posts.
The tent
The tent of Iron Age with a ridge pole and
vertical supports.
THE TENT OF BRONZE AGE

9. The remains of the Stone Age can be classified into :
➢ Monoliths or Menhirs :
➢ A prehistoric monument consisting of an upright megalith, usually standing alone but sometimes
aligned with others.
➢ Their size can vary considerably, but their shape is generally uneven and squared. often tapering
towards the top.
➢ Menhirs are widely distributed across Europe. Africa, and Asia but are most numerous in Western
Europe: particularly in Ireland, Great Britain and Brittany.
➢ They were constructed during different periods across pre —history as part of a larger megalithic
culture that flourished in Europe and beyond.
➢ He major function of Menhirs have variously been thought to have been used by Druids for human
sacrifice, used as territorial markers or elements of a complex ideological system. or functioned as early
calendars.

10. Monoliths:
Single upright stones, also known as
menhirs,
Example : 63 feet high, 14 feet in diameter,
and weighing 260 tons, being at Carnac,
Brittany
Dolmens: (Daul;a table and maen;a stone),
Consisting of one large flat stone
supported by upright stones. Examples are
to be found near Maidstone and other
places in England, also in Ireland, Northern
France, the Channel Islands, Italy and India.

11. STONEHENGE:

12. Stonehenge:
➢ Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument in Wiltshire. England. Archaeologists believe it was
constructed from 3000 BC to 2000 BC.
➢ Begun as a simple earthwork enclosure, it was built in several stages, with the unique lintelled
stone circle being erected in the late Neolithic period around 2500 BC.
➢ Stonehenge remained important into the early Bronze Age. when many burial mounds were
built nearby.
➢ Two types of stone are used at Stonehenge — the larger sarsens and the smaller "bluestone".
➢ The sarsens were erected in 2 concentric arrangements — an inner horseshoe and an outer
circle — and the bluestones were set up between them in a double arc.
➢ Probably at the same time the stone were being set up in the centre of the monument, the
sarsens close to the entrance were raised, together with the four station stones on the
periphery.
➢ About 200 or 300 years later the central bluestones were rearranged to form a circle and inner
oval.

13. Stonehenge:
➢ The earthwork Avenue was also built at this time, connecting Stonehenge with the river
Avon.
➢ One of the last prehistoric activities at Stonehenge was the digging Around the stone
setting of the two rings of concentric pits, the so-called Y and Z holes. They may have
been intended for the rearrangement of the stones that was never completed.
➢ Immediately outside the north-east entrance is the Heel stone, a huge unshaped
sarsen boulder. It may have been an early stone at the site, raised upright from its
original position nearby.
➢ Also near the north-east entrance is the slaughter stone. a fallen sarsen that once
stood upright with one or two other stone in the entrance.

14. Alignments at Stonehenge:
➢ The main axis of the stone is aligned upon the solstitial axis.
➢ At midsummer, the sun rises over the horizon to the north-east, close to the
Heel Stone.
➢ At midwinter, the sun sets in the south-west, in the gap between the two
tallest trilithons, one of which has now fallen.
➢ These times in the seasonal cycle were obviously important to the
prehistoric people who built and used Stonehenge.
➢ The posts measured 4.1 mts high, 2.1 m wide and 1.1 m thick
➢ They were surmounted by 6 to 7 ton lintels that formed a continuous circle
around the top.

15. TUMULUS:

16. Types of Burials and Graves by Prehistoric People:
➢ Tumuli or Burial Mounds — were prototypes of the pyramids of Egypt and the
beehive huts found in Wales, Cornwall, Ireland and elsewhere.
➢ A Tumulus is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. They are
also known as barrows, burial mounds, or Kurgans and can be found throughout
much in the world.

17. Lake Dwellings:

18. Lake Dwellings:
➢ As discovered in the lakes of Switzerland, Italy and Ireland consisted of wooden huts
supported on piles, and were so placed for protection against hostile attacks of all kinds.
➢ They range in the dates between early Neolithic through Iron Age villages.
➢ People who lived in the lake dwelling settlements practised animal husbandry and
farming, as well as relied on fishing and hunting.
➢ Oval Hut, Nice - the oldest recognized buildings in the world are 12 4.00,000 year old huts
found in Nice, France in 1960.
➢ Evidence at Terra Amata indicates that early humans living there occupy oval huts that are
15m by 6 m.

19. Lake Dwellings:
➢ the inhabitants built the huts of animal skins supported by poles. with a hole
in the center for the smoke to escape.
➢ 20 to 40 people could gather in such a shelter.
➢ These people. apparently Neanderthals, were hunters and the site contains
remains of the bones of a variety of animals including elephants , rhinoceros
,red deer, ibex and giant ox.

20. Gallery Graves:

21. Gallery Graves:
➢ A gallery grave is a form of megalithic tomb built primarily during the Neolithic Age in Europe in
which the main gallery of the tomb is entered without first passing through an antechamber or
hallway.
➢ There are four major types of gallery grave - complex,transepted, segmented, and wedge-shaped.
➢ The structure resembles a megalithic corridor under an elongated mound, though sometimes
they are cut in the rock.
➢ Two parallel walls of stone slabs were erected to form a corridor and covered with a line of
capstones. The rectangular tomb was covered with a barrow or a cairn.
➢ Most were built during the 4TH millenium BC, though some were still being built in the Bronze
Age.

22. Gallery Graves:
➢ Some of the graves in Britain also has side chambers.
➢ Segmented graves with concave forecourts are found in Ulster and
South-western Scotland.
➢ In the Paris Basin the gallery graves have small round entrances and are lined
with large stone slabs.
➢ The tombs are often associated with deities, whose representations are
depicted on the rock walls.

23. Gallery Graves:
➢ They are distributed across Europe and they are usually subdivided by period, region and also into more
generic types of long barrows, chambered round barrows, etc .
➢ In 2000 BC, new generation of tombs called Coves appeared.
➢ They consisted of 3 upright slabs set in configuration of a U facing east, open to the sky and often
surrounded by circular embankments and stone circles.
★ The difference between a complex gallery grave and a passage grave (which also has smaller burial
chambers opening off the main passage) is two-fold. First, the gallery grave gallery will be as high and
wide as the side burial chambers, while in a passage grave the passage is not as high or wide as the burial
chambers. Second, gallery graves are usually topped by a V-shaped tumulus, while passage graves are
almost always covered by a round tumulus.

24. Stone Circles (CROMLECH):

25. Stone Circles (CROMLECH):
➢ At one time, there might have been more than 4000 of them.
➢ Two-thirds of which were erected in the major building phase between 3000 and 1300 BC.
➢ The earliest stone circles ranged in size from 18 to 30 m in diameter, with the stones standing shoulder
to shoulder.
➢ For most part they were near a village or clan compound and were built with local stones.
➢ They could be round or oval, they could have concentric embankments of stone circles, and many had
approach avenus. Some were associated with burials. others with cremation.
➢ At Loanhead of Daviot, stones were not upright but flat on the ground and in the center were the
remnants of a fire pit with cremated human bones.
➢ Many had a central stone.
➢ Though debatable. they were meant to follow the movements of the moon and the stars as would have
been typical for agrarian based communities.

26. Catal Huyuk :

27. Catal Huyuk :
➢ One of the world's first permanent settlements. Populated 7500 -5700 BC and flourished in
7000 BC .
➢ Located in central Anatolia what is now Turkey Populated of about 8000 people.
➢ 1000 dwellings crammed together like a honeycomb.
➢ No streets.
➢ People climbed out through ladders in their ceilings.
➢ Supported by agriculture and animal domestication -barley. peas. wheat -cattle, sheep.
➢ Famous because it is so well preserved. It lay in the centre of the metal trade .

28. Catal Huyuk :
➢ The city was located next to a river that fed into a nearby lake.
➢ Consisted of rectangular flat roofed houses packed together into single
architectural mass with no streets or passageways.
➢ WaIls made of mud bricks reinforced by massive oak posts.
➢ Light entered through small windows high in the walls.
➢ If a family died out, the house was abandoned for a period of time and
then eventually reclaimed.
➢ Until the house was reclaimed. it was used to throw garbage.

29. Catal Huyuk :
➢ Typical residence consisted one large room connected with smaller storage rooms.
➢ The main room was equipped with benches, ovens and bins.
➢ Average size of a room — 5m X 6m .
➢ Walls were plastered and many were decorated with spectacular hunting scenes, textile patterns or
landscapes.
➢ Raised benches on all three sides for sleeping and other activities.
➢ Homes of animals especially cattle were mounted on walls.
➢ Each house had its own shrine consisting of a wall decorated with bulls or horns.
➢ In some cases pair of horns were set in clay at the edge of platforms.
➢ The dead of the family were buried in this room and their bones incorporated in to the shrine.
➢ Principal deity — mother goddess .

30. Factors affecting River valley Cultures :

31. ➢ Approximately 5000 years ago the first complex, politically centralized civilizations
began to crystallize independently along a number of river valleys throughout the
southern half of Asia and northern Africa .
➢ These civilizations constitute the next step in the organization and centralization of
human economic, political, religious, and social institutions and practices.
➢ Rivers supplied a continuous if not always dependable flow and supply of water for
farming and human consumption.
➢ These rivers along with climate, vegetation, geography. and topography shaped the
development of the early river valley civilizations.

32. ➢ However. while people of these civilizations were dependent on the rivers,
the rivers also inspired new technological. economic, institutional, and
organizational innovations and developments.
➢ Between 3000 and 2000 B.C.E. such river valley civilizations formed
independently of each other along the Indus, the Nile, the Tigris and
Euphrates, and the Yellow Rivers.
➢ These civilizations shared certain characteristics that distinguished them
from the collections of Neolithic communities that preceded them .

33. THANK--YOU