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▶ building techniques and materials
introduction
In a modern city a common sight is that of towering cranes
that reach high into the sky to lift building materials to the
tops of huge, multistoried buildings under construction. In
cities, small towns, and rural areas, the sound of tractors,
bulldozers, and backhoes, along with electric saws and drills,
pneumatic hammers, and the engines of massive trucks, ac-
companies the construction of roads, bridges, houses, public
buildings, and the like.
In a world in which these labor-saving tools are so com-
mon, even indispensable, it seems almost impossible to un-
derstand how ancient people built many of the structures
that defi ne their civilization for modern-day historians and
archaeologists. Yet build them they did, using whatever ma-
terials were available to them and working out construction
techniques that enabled them to erect some of the most mag-
nifi cent structures the world has ever seen. Lacking the tools
and materials so common in the 21st century, they had to rely
on their ingenuity as well as on massive teams of laborers (of-
ten slaves), to muscle local materials into usable and perma-
nent structures.
Prehistoric peoples relied on whatever materials were
at hand. In some regions it was common to build structures
such as houses out of reeds, grasses, thatch, clay, mud, bark,
bamboo, stones, or wooden poles and beams. A common
early building technique is called wattle and daub. Wat tl e
refers to a lattice wall constructed with small, fl exible tree
branches woven together. Once the wall was complete, a daub
made of mud, perhaps strengthened with ground-up straw,
was smeared over it, like plaster. Also common among early
peoples were earth mounds, typically used as burial sites.
As people began to gather in cities and as civilization be-
came more complex and advanced, early builders began to
use a wider variety of materials and to devise building tech-
niques that allowed them to create more elaborate structures.
As it is today, wood was a common building material in for-
ested regions, but wood is nondurable and especially vulner-
able to moisture, so modern scholars have very few examples
of wooden structures to study. Further, when some regions
of the world became deforested as populations grew, build-
ers had to turn to other types of building materials, particu-
larly stone. In many cases, this stone was joined with cement
and covered with a layer of adobe, limestone plaster, or some
other substance.
Stone is heavy, making it hard to transport, so builders
typically relied on the type of stone that was locally available.
In some regions it was sandstone and in others marble, gran-
ite, or some other stone. Using primitive hand-held cutting
tools, miners quarried the stone, dressed it (that is, cut into
shape, trimmed, and smoothed), and then transported it to
the building site. Where possible, as in ancient Egypt, build-
ers used water power to transport the stone.
At a building site builders relied on a number of tools to
ensure that their buildings were level and square and that walls
were perpendicular to the ground. Th ese included such tools
as plumb bobs and various other contrivances that gave them
level, perpendicular lines. Water troughs were also commonly
used to fi nd a level line. Levers, pulleys, and ropes, along with
a good deal of manpower and the work of horses or oxen, were
used to lift materials into place. In some cases, such as the pyr-
amids of ancient Egypt, large ramps were constructed to raise
the materials; sometimes these ramps were almost as much of
a construction project as the building itself.AFRICA
BY KIRK H. BEETZ
Most ancient Africans used clay, rushes (a type of plant),
wicker, grass, bamboo, or tree bark when building. Stone was
used for construction primarily in the northeast and east of
Africa. Elsewhere in Africa stone was rarely used for any-
thing but altars in shrines, and then it tended to be used as it
was found and left uncut.
Th e majority of Africans lived in huts. Th ese were usually
windowless, with the only opening being a doorway. As a re-
sult, interiors were smoky from the open cooking fi res or clay
ovens. Huts were most oft en circular but could be oval. Th eir
walls were made of clay that had probably been dug up and
transported by women. Th ese clay walls were built up in cir-
cular layers, fi rst a bottom one of perhaps eight inches high,150 building techniques and materials: introduction