Hoa Notes

Explain in detail the pre historic settlements and its characteristics with examples. Briefly explain the features of a prehistoric settlement. Primitive man Shelters Neanderthal- caves and oval huts Stone age – Caves with different spaces for different functions Neolithic age- shelters from mud, wood and stone and covering them with woven grass and hide. Early Neolithic period: 10,000 to 5000 BCE Walled town of Jericho, Palestine -8,300 BCE: Catal hoyuk, Southern Turkey, largest and most complex settlement in Neolithic age-7400 BCE : Prehistoric settlement: Prehistoric settlements were made from temporary materials to serve for living in winters. These dwellings were the hut , the lean to the tent and the pit house. Mammoth bone circular oval hut The houses are circular or oval, 3-6 meters in diameter, and enclosing a living area of 12-24 sq meters. ▪ The curving V’s of mammoth mandibles were stacked along the base of the hut walls .Tusks were used as roof supports. ▪ It would have required ten men to work four days to build a house of this size. ▪ Storage pits were dug outside to keep the meat cold. ▪ Deep hearths warmed the interior of the huts and the houses held a wide array of artifacts like stone blades, bone needles and other jewellery like necklaces and bracelets made from beads of fossilized sea shells. Oval Hut, Terra Amata, Nice, France ▪ The huts were built of animal skins supported by poles, with a hole in the center for the smoke to escape. ▪ In the center of each hut was a fireplace, with ashes showing that the inhabitants had domesticated fire. ▪ Low walls of stones and beach pebbles, placed to the northwest of the fireplaces, which would have sheltered the fire from the strong cold winds from the north. Pit houses Pit houses are dwellings dug into the ground. Post holes were dug into the ground to place the posts to support the roof. The roof was made of layers of wood and mud supported on vertical and buttressed posts and entry was through a hole in the roof. Occupied mostly in winter only and used to store food. Skara Brae : A stone built Neolithic settlement located in Scotland. Consisted of eight clustered houses . an underground village linked by a series of short roofed tunnels. Circular houses with one main room having a central hearth stone beds on either side set into the walls. Had a low doorway with a stone slab door that could be closed and secured by a bar fitted into the door jamb. Roof was made of perishable material such as whale bone or drift wood beams supporting a roof of skin or seaweed or straw thatch. Jericho Villages are characterized by small circular dwellings, burials of the dead within the floors of buildings, reliance on hunting wild game, the cultivation of wild or domestic cereals, and no use of pottery. Circular dwellings were built of bricks, shaped from mud and baked hard in the sun. In keeping with a circular tradition, each brick is curved on its outer edge and were plastered together with a mud mortar. Most houses had a single room with some having up to three rooms. Each house measured about 5 metres (16 ft) across, and was roofed with mud-smeared brush. Hearths were located within and outside the homes. Catal Hoyuk Catal Hoyuk in Turkey dates back to 7400 BCE. City located in the centre of a large, well watered valley and next to a river that fed in to a nearby lake. City consisted of rectangular flat roofed houses packed together into a single architectural mass with no street or passageways.Inhabitants moved across rooftops and descended into their homes through the roofs via ladders.Walls were made of mud bricks reinforced by massive oak posts. Light came through small windows high in the walls. Typical house of Catal Hoyuk Typical house contained one large room connected to smaller storage rooms. Main room occupied with benches ovens and bins. Average size of room = 5 X 6 meters Walls were plastered, and decorated with hunting scenes, textile patterns or landscapes. Raised platforms on three sides of the room for sleeping and other activities. Horns of animals were mounted on the walls. Unoccupied houses were used as garbage pits. What are Megalithic structures? What is meant by megalithic construction? Megaliths are large monumental stones either alone or together with other stones. Megalithic structures were made of large stones, utilizing an interlocking system without the use of mortar or cement as well as representing periods of pre history. Briefly describe the characteristics of the three types of graves built by Prehistoric people with relevant sketches. Explain with neat sketches prehistoric mass burial graves with two types of examples. The earliest tombs are found in Europe. They had no temple culture or a more complex priestly culture. The first architectural expressions were thus tombs, which preserved the memories of clan lineages and served as places for gathering trade and ritual. The different types of graves built by pre historic people are Dolmens , Passage graves and Gallery Graves Dolmens Dolmens were the original type of cyclopean stone tomb, from which two further forms were developed - the passage tomb and gallery grave. This typically consisted of several upright supports (orthostats) topped with a flat roofing slab or capstone. Tomb containing a single chamber where the entrance area merges with the burial area itself. Sometimes still covered with a round earth mound Barrow or Chamber Tombs or Passage Graves Portuguese tombs are the oldest tombs. Consist of a chamber built of stone slabs approached through a narrow passageway Covered by an artificial mound of earth or stone called as a barrow, hence barrow tombs and were sometimes fortified by retaining walls. The ceiling of some of the chambers were corbelled with stones placed farther and farther toward the center of the space till they met at the top. Some variants have simple single chambers, while other may have sub-chambers leading off from the main burial chamber. Gallery grave A Gallery grave is a form of megalithic tomb where there is no size difference between the burial chamber itself and the entrance passage. 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 earth barrow or a cairn Henge Monuments Henge is a roughly circular or oval-shaped flat area enclosed and delimited by a boundary earthwork usually a ditch with an external bank. The most distinctive components of any henge monuments are its bank and ditch. Most henges have either a single ditch or a pair of concentric ditches surrounding the central area. The soil and bedrock taken from the ditch was used to build the henge bank which generally lay outside the ditch. The sizes of the banks varied proportionally with the size of the ditches. Typically, however, they seem to have been fairly broad at the base, five metres to 30 metres wide and up to five metres high. Access to the central area was via formal entrances through the earthwork. Most henges have either one entrance or two opposed entrances. Stonehenge The first monument consisted of a circular bank and ditch enclosure made of Chalk and the Aubrey holes, all probably built around 3100 BC. It had a diameter of about 100 meters with two or three spaces left open for access to the inside of t circle The Aubrey holes are round pits in the chalk, about one metre wide and deep, with steep sides and flat bottoms. They form a circle about 284 feet in diameter. A long avenue marked by stones ran up to the trench and alongside a single 4.9 meter high stone just outside the circle. It has a pointed top and is known as the heel stone. The northeast entrance was aligned to the northern most rising of the moon and the other was aligned to the south The second stage of the Stonehenge took place during 2500 BCE. The beaker people transformed the Stonehenge from a lunar to solar monument. Since the beaker people were into smelting of ore the Stonehenge was redesigned transforming its orientation from moon to the sun. To do this they rotated the axis by 3 degrees eastward to coincide with the midsummer rising sun. The most significant change attributed to the Beaker people was the addition of the ring of sixty large bluestones to the interior. They also imposed a rectangle shape measuring 33 by 80 meters on to the circle by adding four large stones that point to summer and winter risings and settings. A new tribe took over from the Beaker people around 2300 BCE .they removed the bluestones and added the famous Sarsen ring of trilithons, the ring 33 meters across was composed of thirty enormous stones with an average weight of 26 tons. The Sarsen ring was architecturally different from the regular English work due to the fact that the stones were finished and erected like carpentry in stonework. In its final stage Stonehenge the bluestones were brought back to the site with some being erected within the Sarsen Ring and others placed in a horse shoe configuration. The Y and Z holes are the last known construction at the Stonehenge and date around 1600 BCE.