In very early times, people probably lived in caves, moving from one cave to another as they roamed around, hunting for food. It is thought that some of the first people to settle down in one place did so in what is now Palestine, around 13,000 years ago. The Natufians, as they are known, built circular huts made from mud, reeds and wood. They lived in these and used them to store grain.
Ice age humans lived in caves some of the time but they also made tents from mammoth skins. Mammoth bones were used as supports. They wore boots, trousers, and anoraks made from animal skins. When the ice age ended a new way of life began. By 8,000 BC people in the Middle East had begun to farm. Food was cooked in clay ovens. The people of Jericho knew how to make sun-dried bricks and they used them to make houses.
About 7,000 BC a new people lived in Jericho and they had learned to make mortar. They used it to plaster walls and floors. Catal Huyuk was one of the world’s first towns. It was built in what is now Turkey about 6,500 BC not long after farming began. Catal Huyuk probably had a population of about 6,000. In Catal Huyuk the houses were made of mud brick. Houses were built touching against each other. They did not have doors and houses were entered through hatches in roofs. Presumably having entrances in the roofs was safer than having them in the walls. (Catal Huyuk was unusual among early towns as it was not surrounded by walls). Since houses were built touching each other the roofs must have acted as streets! People must have walked across them.
In Catal Huyuk there were no panes of glass in windows and houses did not have chimneys. Instead, there were only holes in the roofs to let out the smoke. Inside houses were plastered and often had painted murals of people and animals on the walls. People slept on platforms. In Catal Huyuk the dead were buried inside houses. (Although they may have been exposed outside to be eaten by vultures first).
By 4,000 BC farming had spread across Europe. When people began farming they stopped living in tents made from animal skins and they began to live in huts made from stone or wattle and daub with thatched roofs. Bronze Age people lived in round wooden huts with thatched roofs.
Picture credit: Google