beyond the walls so that dripping water or falling snow would
not damage the walls.
A roundhouse’s pitched roof was cone-shaped, rising to
a peak. On rectangular structures one side of the roof might
have been raised higher than the other, or the roof might have
been double-pitched, that is, having two halves, each of which
angled down from a central beam running the length of the
house. At either end of the house, the two roof halves and the
top of the end walls formed a triangle. Th is triangle might
have been covered by further roofi ng or fi lled in with gables,
triangular pieces of wood or wattle that rose from the tops
of the end walls. Houses in parts of southern Europe, where
conditions were drier and warmer, oft en had fl at roofs, since
water and snow accumulation was not a serious problem.
Many of these roofs had an outer covering of dirt that oft en
supported a rooft op garden.
For thousands of years most houses lacked windows and
had only one doorway. Aft er 800 b.c.e., however, houses with
several entrances appeared. In Britain, for example, round-
houses of the last centuries b.c.e. and the fi rst century c.e. had
a main door that was fl anked by two smaller entryways. Half-
way around the circle was another large entrance. Th e main
entrances, perhaps for religious reasons, faced east and west.
Th e entryway might or might not have had some sort of
covering. In some ancient European homes entryways were
left open or hung with a hide curtain. In Bulgaria in the sixth
millennium b.c.e. a screen just inside the door provided
privacy by blocking the view of anyone looking in from the
outside. Many later houses, however, had wooden or wattle
doors that pivoted on stone pins. Th e large entryways of
British roundhouses in the ninth century b.c.e. had double
doors. Some entryways were sheltered from rain and snow by
a porch, a rectangular wooden frame with wattle walls and a
fl at or pitched roof. Th e porch was used at times to house ani-
mals such as pigs. Occasionally, to keep heavy rain, melting
snow, or other groundwater from running into the house’s
interior, the bottom of the door did not reach the ground, and
a step was provided to make entry easier. If the fl oor was dug
below ground level, steps inside led down.
HOUSE INTERIORS
Inside ancient European houses the roof poles and raft ers
were left visible. Floors were oft en dug down a foot or more.
Th ey were made of beaten earth or were covered with ani-
mal skins, clay, paving stones, or wooden planks. Sunk into
the fl oors of some buildings were clay- or stone-lined pits for
storage. A rare house even had a shallow basement with a
clay coating or stone lining. Th e interior walls were occasion-
ally painted, as in German houses of the fourth millennium
b.c.e., in which red and white zigzags streaked across a yellow
background. If the walls were thick enough, as they were in
some houses in Britain and Scotland, cupboards, shelves, and
benches were cut into them.
Many houses, particularly in the early agricultural pe-
riod, had a single room. In small rectangular buildings and in
most roundhouses, the room space was empty. However, many
rectangular structures had several roof-supporting posts—
sometimes in rows, sometimes staggered—breaking up the
fl oor area. Buildings that lacked these posts had roofs that
were fully supported by their frames, which in turn were sup-
ported by the walls. Among roundhouses, only the largest had
roofs heavy enough to require support posts, and even they
had a large, central, unbroken space because the posts, num-
bering 12 or more, were placed around the border of the room
a few feet from the inner wall. Some roundhouses did have a
central post that rose up to the roof and to which roof poles
connected, but most of the fl oor area still remained free.
Commonly, in larger rectangular and circular houses
partitions of wattle stretched between the support posts to di-
vide the interior into two or more rooms. In a two-room house
one room was used for cooking and activities such as weaving
and tool making and repair, while the other was for sleeping.
In buildings with many rooms the front chamber was a com-
bined reception area and workroom, while other chambers
served as a kitchen–dining room and one or more bedrooms.
In northern Scotland a special class of stone roundhouses,
known as wheelhouses, had rooms formed by piers, stone
supports that projected from the wall and ran from fl oor
to roof to give the latter support. Th e piers also formed the
walls of the rooms, each of which faced an open central space.
Th ese houses also had a stone hallway leading from the entry-
way into the house’s center. Th e house’s name comes from the
wheel-like appearance of its interior: Th e house wall was the
wheel rim, the piers were the spokes, and the central room
was the hub.
Many homes housed more than just people. In regions
with hard winters one room would contain stalls, mainly
for cattle. In Scotland in the last centuries b.c.e. the space
along the walls of roundhouses was sunken and paved with
stone, probably as a pen for animals. Frequently one or more
rooms had a loft , a partial second fl oor that was reached by
ladder from the ground fl oor. Loft s had plank fl oors covered
with wattle and made excellent places to keep food away from
both domestic and wild animals. A few houses even had a
complete second story. Th e same houses in Scotland that had
paved sunken areas had a second fl oor supported by posts
that served as the building’s living quarters.
Without windows and oft en with only a single entryway
to let in sunlight during the day, house interiors were quite
dim, particularly in rooms partitioned off from the door. In
a longhouse, for instance, which had its door at one end of
the building, much of the interior was dark. Th e end farthest
from the door was thus used for food storage and for housing
livestock, the middle section for eating and sleeping, and the
door’s end for all activities requiring light.
Since chimneys did not exist in ancient European hous-
es, the home’s entryway allowed smoke from fi res for cooking
and heating to escape. Smoke also escaped through the roof.
Much of the roofi ng material, such as thatch or turf, was po-
rous enough to allow smoke to seep out. However, it was notarchitecture: Europe 71