PREHISTORIC ARCHITECTURE

Background of Prehistoric Architecture

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 modern man (homo
sapiens) that lasted about 400,000 years. Prehistory is not
associated with a particular place or time. In some areas in the
Near East it continued until the 4th millennium BCE, while in
Central America it lasted until 500 BCE. In Hawaii, it lasted
until January 17, 1779, when Captain James Cook arrived to the
coast of Hawaii. Due to lack of written documentation,
prehistoric research is based on remains, which are used as
evidence.
Today it is customary to present prehistoric timetables
based on division into regions - Africa, South America, Central
America, North America, Southwest Asia, Central and Eastern
Asia, Australia and surroundings, and Europe.
The timetables presented here relate to prehistoric
Southwest Asia and Europe, which are relevant to discussing
Western architecture. The dates are approximate.
Southwest Asia
10,000 BCE - Man began to grow grain. Agricultural
development greatly changed his life. Instead of wandering from
place to place, seeking food, he settled in one place, and learnt
how to domesticate animals and grow crops. The change of
seasons created a routine of sowing and harvesting.
6500 BCE - A permanent settlement has provided man with
time to paint vessels that he prepared, make baskets, use copper

and obsidian for his needs, and grow olives and vines. Man
began to be an active partner with nature, rather than being
satisfied with finished products provided by nature.
5000 BCE - Houses divided into rooms were built, and the
earth was plowed.
4000 BCE In pottery making, the use of potter wheel was
widely adopted.
3500 BCE - Agricultural villages became cities. Man
discovered that copper can be strengthened by melting it with
tin, to create bronze, which replaced stone as the main tool for
producing vessels. Man developed the plow, and began to
specialize in his work. Sailing and trade practice began, along
with the development of mathematics and writing.
Europe
10,000 BCE Man used cereals, fruits and marine resources,
found in nature.
6500 BCE - Villages appeared in the southeastern Europe. Man
began to grow cereal and domesticate animals.
4500 BCE Man began to use copper.
4000 BCE Man began to practice agriculture. In northwestern
Europe megaliths appeared for the first time.
3500 BCE - Began the use of plow and carts.
3000 BCE - Began wool production and the domestication of
horses.
2300 BCE - Began the use of writing by the Minoans .
2000 BCE - Began the use of bronze.
100 BCE - Urban settlement began in northern Europe.
The buildings that survived from prehistoric times and are
considered architectural works were cult structures. Homes were
built with less durable materials, such as mud bricks and wood.

Religious motives led to significant achievements throughout

the history of architecture beginning with prehistory.
Prehistoric buildings
3,500 years BCE , man has developed a form of architecture
based on megaliths (megalith - a big rock; literally in Greek:
lithos - stone, megas - big) - structures made of rough huge
stone blocks, probably intended for burial ritual.
During prehistoric times, as well as throughout history,
stones and rocks were associated with divinity. Examples to this
can be found in different cultures: Persian god Mithras was
considered as having been born from a rock, marrying a rock
and whose father was a rock, Moses struck the rock to get water,
the meaning of the word "Petra" in Greek is a stone, hence the
name of St. Peter's (Petrus).
Prehistory saw three main types of using megalith stones
known to us: menhir, dolmen, and stones arranged in a circle.
Menhirs
Menhir (literally in Brittany French: a long stone; menstone, hir-long) is a huge stone standing vertically in the ground.
Such stones are usually standing in the middle of a field or
arranged in rows, which shows that they were transferred to
where they are. The piece of stone stuck in the ground is often a
fifth to a quarter of its overall height. The average height of
these stones is nine meters. The highest menhir in Europe is 20
meters tall above the ground, and four meters under the ground.
Despite its enormous weight (350 tons), it was transported
several kilometers to its place of use. Today it is composed of
four fragments lying on the ground where it was found in
Carnac (Brittany, France). Researchers believe that it broke
shortly after being brought to its place so that its parts would

serve as lintels in dolmens (structures with two vertical stones

supporting a third stone), a plan which eventually failed. This
hypothesis is based on the dolmens in the area, whose lintels
were made of similar blocks of stones.
The number of megaliths in Carnac is the largest in the
world. More than 3,000 are found there, dating to the period
between about 5000 to 1000 BCE. The word Carnac probably
originates in the word Cairn or Carn - a medieval English term,
meaning a pile of stones used as a landmark or as a memorial
site.
Image - Menhirs in Carnac
In some menhirs, there is a natural opening, which was
probably why they were selected and brought to their place.
Some are decorated with decorative patterns - the most common
are spiral patterns, concentric circles, and U-shaped and zigzag
forms. According to researchers' hypothesis, these patterns are
associated with worship of the sun and other heavenly elements.
There are researchers who find a connection between the
spiral and concentric circles patterns, and the cult of the Great
Goddess - the Universal Mother worshiped in the Mediterranean
region as life giver. The researchers interpret the patterns as
abstract description of woman's belly, from which life emerges,
and as a symbol of the earth's navel. This hypothesis is inspired
by the meaning ascribed to the spiral as symbol of Mother Earth
among the Indians in North America.
Apart from menhirs engraved with abstract forms, there
were menhirs with low reliefs of human figures. Such menhirs
were found in Italy, Corsica, and France. In Haut Languedoc
region (France) the most common motifs incised on them are a

face with two eyes, two arms and two legs. Nose, mouth and
ears are absent from most of the reliefs. The height of these
stones, dating to 2600-1800 BCE, ranges from 0.80 meters to
4.5 meters, and their weight ranges from hundreds of kilograms
to 14 tons.
The best preserved anthropomorphic menhirs are found in
museums in France, including: Museum of Natural History in
Nmes, Montpellier Archaeological Society Museum, and Muse
Fenaille in Rodez. Scholars believe that these menhirs represent
gods or goddesses whose duty was to protect the living or the
dead.
One fascinating fact regarding megalithic monuments is
their orientation. Menhirs fields are arranged in parallel lines
from east to west ending in cromlech - a circle of stones. The
menhirs seem as if arranged according to astronomical map.
They are laid out on the axis connecting the points of sunrise
and sunset on the longest or the shortest day of the year.
The longest day, the shortest day, the spring equinox, and
the autumn equinox, divide the year into four seasons. On each
of these days were held celebrations to mark the event.
Emphasis on orientation may reflect the way God makes his way
and the direction from which he is expected to appear. Sun and
moon eclipses provided an opportunity for irregular ceremonies
marking the return of the sun or the moon, expressing death and
resurrection in nature.
The phenomenon of menhirs is not unique to the area of
Carnac. Across Europe, there are different types of rows of
stones whose number and size vary from place to place, but
because most of the stones were damaged during the Middle
Ages by builders who reused them, it is difficult to assess how
they originally looked. Most of the rows of stones are made of

menhirs, which are approximately one meter tall. The number of

rows in such a site ranges from two to six, and they run along
about 50 meters. In Carnac the stones' height ranges from half a
meter to four meters. In each of the rows of stones, the largest
stone is located at the western end. Each such row must have
ended with a circle of stones.
The rows of stones and stone circles were used as a place of
gathering and ceremonies. Some researchers are trying to
decipher the menhirs phenomenon. The phallic appearance of
most of them brings some researchers to the conclusion that they
are associated with fertility cult. Some associate them with sun
or moon worship. Others speculate that the menhirs were
designated to specify special events or to serve as a sundial. The
motive for carrying them was probably religious, because this
kind of motive is strong enough to bring people to make such an
effort.
Dolmens
The word dolmen originates from the expression taol maen,
which means "stone table" in Brittany. The first builders used
stones that were within their reach. They built dolmens - sort of
structures in a form of a "table", consisting of two huge standing
stones supporting a horizontal giant stone. Each of the stones
weighs several tons, but those huge stone blocks are laid one
upon the other without mortar. There were also low dolmens
only about 1.5 meters tall. Originally, the dolmens were covered
with more stones and earth, but as time went on, only the
megalithic structures remained.
We find dolmens throughout Western Europe, from Italy to
the northwest of Ireland, from southern Spain and Portugal to
Denmark and southern Sweden. In Israel, hundreds of them are

found in the Golan Heights and many others near Kibbutz

Shamir.
The dolmen probably served as a grave or as an altar, a
table of the gods who were conceived of as giants. There were
also found dolmens laid out one after another, in sequence in a
form reminiscent of a corridor. "Corridor" type dolmens
appeared in western France in the 5th millennium BCE.
Image - a dolmen
Image - A "corridor" type of dolmen .
When dolmens are standing in a long line (like those in
Carnac), they are probably associated with the cult of death.
Some of the "corridor" type dolmens served as collective graves,
which is why some interpret them as tombstones.
Unlike the menhirs, around which many people gathered,
the corridor type of dolmens allowed access only to a limited
number of people, being structures with limited space. Findings
from recent years indicate the overlap between the time of
menhirs lines, menhirs circles and grave structures. These three
elements were probably part of one religious system.
Apart from the corridor type of dolmens there was another
form of structure - a room with a corbel vault created by a series
of horizontal rows of stones, each placed above the other. There
are also structures that integrate these two forms of construction,
such as a corbel vault over a corridor type of dolmen.
Construction method depended on the type of stones found
nearby. Often reliefs adorned the burial chambers with patterns
such as zigzag, curved line, axe, and more.

Megalithic monuments have always ignited man's

imagination. They provided plenty of legends and superstitions.
The French phrase Grotte de Fe (literally in French: Tomb of
the goddess of fate) is used in France as the name of many
dolmens. The word Fe is the French form of the Latin Fata,
meaning goddess of fate. One of the beliefs associated with
dolmens was that the fate goddesses carried the huge stones on
their heads and in their aprons as they were weaving. Other
legends connected dolmens with giants, among them Gargantua,
the hero of the book by Rabelais from the 16th century, which
was a legendary hero known for a long time before Rabelais
wrote his story. Some dolmens are associated by name with him,
including: " Gargantua's Bed", " Gargantua's Chair" and " the
Giant's Bed".
Stonehenge
Stonehenge is a site in southern England, composed of a
group of stones arranged in concentric circles. This array of
stones is not a single structure, but a series of structures built
and rebuilt over a period of about 1,500 years. Researches
distinguish three phases of construction in Stonehenge. The first
was completed in c.2900 BCE, the second took place during the
years c.2900 c.2500 BCE and the third - from c.2550 to c.1600
BCE.
This is the best preserved megalithic site in Europe. It
included a large external circle of triliths (only in Stonehenge
the dolmens are called triliths; trilith, literally in Greek: three
stones), two internal circles built in a similar manner, and altarshaped stone in the center.
Today it is hard to distinguish between the circles because
some of the stones were gone and some have fallen out of
position. In the heart of the inner circle stood a group of stones

arranged in a horseshoe shape. The open side of the horseshoe

was exactly directing to the point where the sun rises on the
longest day of the year. During sunrise, the rays of the sun shine
for several minutes exactly into the central axis of the horseshoe.
The round shapes repeated in Stonehenge are an example
of a universal reference to celestial events in prehistoric
architecture. Bodies that are visible in the sky are round, and
according to many cosmological theories, from earlier times, the
sun and the stars emerge from earth and return to earth every
day.
Image - Stonehenge
According to a hypothesis of archaeologists, Stonehenge
was a kind of temple where rituals were held on the dates of the
longest and shortest days of the year. The relationship between
the form of the structure and the "movement" of the sun in the
sky made it easier for priests to identify the times when rituals
associated with change of seasons would be held. These dates
had a special meaning for the primitive man, who practiced
agriculture and depended on climate conditions for his living.
The layout of stones in Stonehenge in its architectural
structure anticipates later temples and cathedrals, whose
orientation was planned according to the sun's daily east to west
"movement".
Image - Stonehenge
About 80 stones called "bluestones", were brought from
Preseli Mountains in southwest Wales to Stonehenge. The
question is how the huge stones were brought into place and
how the triliths were built. Researchers speculate that they were

brought on barges along the southern coast of England, carried

by the river, and finally dragged on the ground in sleds.
Apart from bluestones, there was another kind of huge
stones in Stonehenge. These are sandstone rocks called sarsen,
which were brought from a distance of 40 kilometers north of
Stonehenge. These stones, much larger than the bluestones, were
placed in a circle about 33 meters in diameter. Today this circle
is called the "sarsen Circle". Over 30 stone pillars were placed
with lintels (stone beams) above them forming a continuous ring
of sarsen stones. Before being erected, they were fashioned with
mortise and tenon joints.
The sarsen circle, due to its planning and design, is
considered one of the greatest achievements of Stonehenge. The
sophisticated engineering of the structure shows that its builders
were experienced in building large wood structures.
Out of the 30 original sarsen pillars, 17 are still standing
today, bearing six lintels. The horseshoe-shaped structure is also
built from sarsen stones. Five pairs of these huge stones hold the
lintels above them.
In February 2003 were published research results,
according to which in the construction of Stonehenge was
involved a person from the Alps (today Switzerland or
Germany) whose tomb dating to c.2000 BCE, is found five
kilometers from Stonehenge. The many items found in the tomb,
including precious objects such as gold earrings, arrowheads,
copper knives, and pottery, indicate that the dead man was a
royal family member. Checking the skeleton of the man, known
by the researchers as "King of Stonehenge ", identified him as a
man from the Alps region.
During medieval times, the Stonehenge stone circle was
wrapped with mystery and legends. In England and France, it

was called "Hanging Stones". Some ascribe it to the fact that the
stones seem suspended. Others assume that the stones were used
for hanging criminals. Another possibility is that the source of
the name is Hengist, the name of one of two brothers who led
the first Saxons' invasion to England in the 5th century CE.
Hengist's brother was killed, and Hengist and his son conquered
the Kingdom of Kent.
In one of King Arthur's tales, Merlin, Arthur's assistant,
tells him that these stones were mysterious and could cure many
diseases. According to the same story, ancient giants carried the
stones from across Africa, brought them to Ireland, and Merlin
moved them to Stonehenge by the power of his word.