HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE AND CULTURE - I UNIT I PREHISTORIC AGE

PREHISTORIC AGES

PALEOLITHIC• Old Stone Age• 2 million years ago

MESOLITHIC • Middle Stone Age• 20000 BC to 9500 BC

NEOLITHIC • New Stone Age• 9000 BC – 4500 BC

PALEOLITHIC AGE

PALEOLITHIC AGE• Paleolithic or Old Stone Age

(Mesolithic or Middle Stone Age) The time between the end of most recent period of glaciation (c. 10000 BC) and the beginnings of agriculture.

• Paleolithic art appears to have taken three principal forms:

• Portable sculptures of women and animals,

• Paintings on the walls and ceiling of caves and

• The decoration of artifacts with geometric designs.

PALEOLITHIC AGE TOOLS•To hunt for food, early humans formed spears, •first by sharpening the ends of sticks, but later by attaching a sharp stone spear-tip to wood using animal sinew.

PALEOLITHIC CULTURE•Representational art depicted everyday events such as food collecting, hunting, building and warfare.

•Cave paintings representing the life of Paleolithic age and their hunting techniques.

Lascaux is a complex of caves in southwestern France famous for its Paleolithic cave paintings.

•Tools were made for a wide range of purpose and art continued to develop.

PALEOLITHIC AGE CAVE ART

BISON at salon della grotta in France 13000-11000 BC

Depiction of Paleolithic gatherer making cave painting, Europe 10000 BC .

• Neolithic or New Stone Age (c. 6800-2500 BC) that is the period from the beginnings of agriculture to the widespread use of metal tools; the Bronze Age (c. 2500-1250 BC); and the Iron Age (c.1250 BC to AD 1).

NEOLITHIC CULTURE

• This is the final stage of cultural evolution or technological development among prehistoric humans.

•It was characterized by stone tools shaped by polishing or grinding, dependence on domesticated plants or animals, settlement in permanent villages, and the appearance of such crafts as pottery and weaving.

NEOLITHIC CULTURE

New Stone Age is most frequently used in connection with agriculture which is the time when cereal cultivation and animal domestication was introduced.

Because agriculture developed at different times in different regions of the world, there is no single date for the beginning of the Neolithic.

PALEOLITHIC AGES

Division of Labor -Men hunting game animals -Women gathering fruits, berries, and other edibles.Developed simple tools -Spears & axes made from bone & stone

Spirituality and Religion may have begun to develop

Nomadic hunters and food gatherers

20,000 BC to 9500 BC •Small Composite flint tools, •Fishing tackle, •Stone adzes and •Wooden objects such as canoes and bows •Characterized by the introduction of agriculture.

10,000 BCE: •Humans cultivate crops and domesticate animals •Villages continued to divide work between men and women •Women's status declined men took lead in most areas of early societies

NEOLITHIC AGES

MESOLITHIC AGES

ART FORMS AND EVOLUTION OF SHELTER

This was the type of architecture invented by the primeval man to get shelter and protection :

•From variable extreme weather conditions. •From wild beasts and enemies.

Structures created in wood and stone. • Fire used on paved hearths. • No buildings for any special purposes

but dwellings.

PALEOLITHIC DWELLINGS

CAVES

The oldest and most common types of dwellings. •Natural underground spaces, large enough for a human. •Example: Rock shelters, Grottos, Sea caves.

HUTS Located in southern French cities.

•Oval in shape(8m-15m X 4m-6m). •Built close to sea shores. •Built using stakes with stones as supports. •Stout posts along axis. •Floor made of organic matter and ash.

MOLODOVA

A more sophisticated sought. •Wood framework covered with skins, held in place by rough oval mammoth bones, enclosing 15 hearths.

•Consisted of foundation wall of mammoth jaws and long bones, capped with skulls. •Roofed with tree branches, overlaid by tusks.

MEZHIRICH

•Erected against one wall of cave. •Defined at base by stones(12m x 4m). •Skin curtain and roof draped over posts. •May have two compartments, each having an entrance on the longer side.

LEANTOS

Skirts weighed down with pebbles. •Paved interiors. •Open air hearths. •Wooden posts driven into earth covered with skins. •At a later stage, were secured by reindeer antlers.

TENTS

Villages arranged systematically. •Houses aligned in rows. •More regular plans. •Artifacts came into existence. •Settlements began around water bodies. •Fishing, cultivation of cereals and vegetables began. •Animals were domesticated, farming tools were developed. •Dwellings were more durable as compared to that in the Paleolithic age.

MESOLITHIC DWELLINGS

The structure mainly comprised of bamboos. •Plans were trapezoidal in shape. •The size varied from 5.5-30m. •They had wide entrances facing the water bodies (rivers). •Floors were plastered with lime. •Posts were reinforced with stones.

HUTS

•More common in eastern Europe with severely low temperatures. •Oval trapezoidal, pear shaped size(5m-8m x2.5m-3.5m).

•Central post holes indicating existence of roof. •Constructed by making shallow depressions in the ground surrounded by a ring of mammoth bones and tusks.

PIT HOUSES

NEOLITHIC DWELLINGS

Many changes took place. •Production of food. •Developments in agriculture lead to settling down. •Dwellings became more sustainable. •Houses were built with square/rectangular plans, with sections divided with animal skins.

TIMBER FRAMED HOUSES•Square plans:25’ x25’ •Mud walls with 3’ deep footings. •These were more durable as compared to the earlier ones. •Pitched and thatched roofs with overhanging caves. •Interiors raised, plastered with sunken hearths.

Rectangular plans(20’ x26’-150’). •Oak posts made the framework covered with clay. •Floors were defined with layers of clay over a base of logs. •It consisted of 3 types of plans:

TRIPARTITE: •Entrance facing the east. •Central part being the living room. •The third part containing deep storage area.

BIPARTITE: •Entrance •Living room combined with storage.

SINGLE BAY HOUSES: •Having living rooms only.

DOME SHAPED HOUSES•Cul a Bhail, was found on Jura, an island off the west coast of Scotland. •It is very much like a tholos, although they were more dome shaped. But different materials sometimes make for a slightly different shape.

•The tholoi on Cyprus had stone foundations and mud brick domes, and in Mesopotamia they were made from mud brick.

•The mud brick was plastered over with adobe, while this house was made of stone, wood and thatch but the basic idea is the same.

DRY STONE HOUSES

Stone built houses with 3m thick cavity walls. •Inner, outer caves were made of dry stones and the interiors were covered with domestic refuse. •Rectangular plan with circular corners. •Thatched roofs with a smoke hole at the top positioned over central hearth.

REMAINS OF SKARA BRAE

EVOLUTION OF TOMBS IN NEOLITHIC PERIOD DOLMENS are Two or more stones supporting a large one at the top. •Burial features. •Also called cromlechs (brythonic origin).

•Settlements lead to building of monumental stone architecture. •These were mainly collective tombs.

• PASSAGE GRAVES • GALLERY GRAVES

Covering mound (38m x32m) surrounded by wide space with wide ditch beyond. •Entrance passage 1m wide and 1.5m high. burial chamber(5sqm) •Smooth walls built with rectangular blocks and fine joints. •Three cells at three sides of the chamber. Built mainly with masoned walls and corbelled roof.

PASSAGE GRAVES

Corbeled vault of the main chamber in the passage grave, Newgrange, Ireland, ca. 3200-2500 BCE

BURIAL MOUNDSingle grave burials. •Variable forms in exterior and interior forms and arrangements and groupings. •In their simplest form, barrows consisted of earth or stone. •Others were timber mortuary houses or stone cists.

EARTHEN LONG BARROWSA long barrow is a prehistoric monument usually dating to the early Neolithic period. •They are rectangular or trapezoidal tumuli or earth mounds traditionally interpreted as collective tombs. •Long barrows are also typical for several Celtic, Slavic, and Baltic cultures of Northern Europe of the 1st millennium AD.

Gussage Down in the Cranborne Chase area of Dorset, U.K.

STONE HENGE (3100-2000 BC) Wiltshire, England•Circle is 97’ in diameter; trilithons 24’ high.•The circles of trilithons at Stonehenge probably functioned as an astronomical observatory and solar calendar. •The sun rises over its “heel stone” at the summer solstice. Some of the megaliths weigh 50 tons.

•Post and lintel construction

•Megaliths are 21 to 24 feet tall, including height of lintel, and buried four feet in the ground

•Solar and lunar orientation

•Stones dragged from far away to this site

•Circle of megaliths embrace structure, enclosing it

•Inside circle of megaliths is a larger horseshoe-shaped group of megaliths which frame an “Altar Stone”

•Horseshoe-shaped stones face midsummer sunrise over “Heel Stone”

•“Altar Stone” is a green sandstone taken from a mine in Wales, over 200 miles away

•Heaviest stones 50 tons apiece, hauled by sledges (sleds)

•Tools for building: ropes, levers, rollers, axes

•Each stone had clearly been worked with the final visual effect in mind; the pillars widen slightly towards the top, in order that their perspective remains constant when viewed from the ground. •The lintel stones curve slightly to continue the circular appearance of the earlier monument. •The inward-facing surfaces of the stones are smoother and more finely worked than the outer surfaces.

The lintels (horizontal monoliths) were fitted to one another using a woodworking method, the “tongue-and-groove joint”

Sarsen stones

bluestones

Lintels

Open endFacing East

SETTLEMENT DEVELOPMENT• Natufian dwellings were

two types flimsy brush wood shelters or windbreaks built in front of caves on stone pavements or more frequently circular or oval dry stone huts built in open settlements near water sources in the limestone uplands.

• The transition to rectangular mud bricks began in this period and continued into the Neolithic period.

•At Ain Mallaha near Lake Hulen, Israel (9000-8000 BC) there were about 50 dry-stone huts on an open site of 2000 Sqm.•They are circular, semi subterranean and rock-lined, from 3m to 9m Dia.• The beehive forms were constructed of reeds or matting and were probably supported on posts.• The huts were dug into the bank on the upper side to a depth of

1.3m, and the entrance were located on the lower side.• The huts had stone paved floors, and wall finished with lime plaster

painted with red orche.• Similar kind of huts were found at Wadi Fallah, Nahal Oren & Beidha.

• The Khirokitia culture of the aceramic,Neolithic period in Cyprus (c. 5650 BC)

• This comprised about a thousand houses and approached by stone paved road.

• The houses are Circular 3m to 8m in diameter, lower parts of the walls were made of local lime stone and dome superstructure of pise or mud brick.

• Some houses had double walls the outer leaf acts as a retaining wall.

• Lofts supported on stone pillars and number of outbuildings used for grinding corn, storage, cooking and workshops.

• Beehive shaped tholoi were built in Mesopotamian lowlands during the Neolithic period at Arpachiyah (c.5000 BC)

• Dwellings which are keyhole shaped plan had walls up to 2m thick. • Rectangular anteroom were up to 19m long and dome chamber upto 10m

across.• The walls were of plastered tauf occasionally painted red and roof were

thatched.

CATAL HUYUK•Occupied between 6300 BC to 5400 BC

•Supported a population of upto 6000 people.

•It was the largest & most cosmopolitan city of its time.

•It had an extensive economy based on specialized craft & commerce.

•The city was a trading center.

•The size of the city & its wealth are a product of its status as a trading center.

•Physically it was highly organized with elaborate architectural features.

•Houses were packed in one continuous block punctuated by courtyards.

•Houses were of one story mud construction.

•No streets in settlement and access to houses was through the roof.

CATAL HUYUK- SHRINES & DWELLINGS•Many Houses have cult rooms decorated with bull heads

•Some Houses appear to be shrines for worship.

•Houses had main rooms with in built clay furniture, fire places and ladder to the roof.

• Houses of Imiris Gora (c. 4660 – 3955 BC) in Transcaucasia were round or oval, 3m to 4.5m in diameter and were built of mud brick on stone foundation

• As in Natufian dwellings many were semi subterranean.• Several of the houses had keyhole shaped plan, with internal buttresses to

take the thrust where the domes abutted, and others had out houses arranged round courtyards.

• Latterly two roomed houses evolved with buttressed walls and flat roofs supported on timber posts.

• The village had a population estimated at 200 – 250.

• In Jericho (c. 8350 – 7350 BC) of lowest Neolithic levels many round and oval shaped houses spreading over 4 ha (10 acres) were found.

• Each house of about 5m in diameter have evolved from Natufian drystone tradition, but they were built of loaf-shaped mud bricks with indentation on the convex face to give a key to the clay mortar.

• The bricks supported domed superstructure of branches covered with clay.

•The houses are pre pottery Neolithic township encircled by a stone wall 3m thick, 4m high and over 700m in circumference.•The houses with solid walls and wide doorways with rounded jambs. •Closely packed but seem to have intercommunication through screen walls and courtyards.•They had highly burnished lime plaster floors laid on gravel and stained red, pink and orange, and plastered walls with red painted dados. •Some of the walls were also decorated with geometric designs

• Tell Ramad at Syria(c. 6000 BC) south west of Damascus, round or oval semi subterranean house were superseded late in Neolithic period.

• Rectangular one roomed houses of mud brick on stone foundation which were separated by narrow alleys.

•In the aceramic Neolithic period at Hacilar (c. 7500 – 6000 BC) in Anatolia, rectangular dwelling were built of mud brick on stone foundation .•No complete house plans have survived, but they appear to have been multi roomed, plastered internally and painted in cream and red bands.•Later in the period at Hacilar (c. 5400 BC) more substantial rectangular mud brick houses 10 m x 4 m were built with walls over a meter thick.

•In its final stage (c. 5400 – 5000 BC) Hacilar was fortified with a stone wall, which enclosed an area 70 m x 35 m.•Its central courtyard was ringed by blocks of two storey houses, with roof access and separated from each other by small fenced yards.

• Jarmo (IRAQ)(c. 7090 - 5000 BC) in the Zagros Mountains had a population about 150 people and was made up of 20-30 small, rectangular mud houses.

• The lower levels of 0ccupation dating from 6500 – 6000 BC were built of tauf with mud floor laid on reeds.

• Each house had an open courtyard measuring roughly 3 m x 4m and comprised several small rectangular rooms, packed into a space about 5 m x 6 m.