was sometimes small and sometimes large. Some huts had
stone foundations, while others built along riverbanks or lake-
shores rested on platforms of brushwood, stone, or moss that
served as protection from the oft en wet and marshy ground.
Th ese tents and huts were generally small, probably meant
for a single family. Some circular tents and huts in Scotland,
for instance, were 13 feet in diameter, about the size of a small
modern bedroom. A few larger structures did exist to house
more people. Early Europeans would connect together two
small tents with a long, hide-covered passageway to make a
larger tent or to construct long huts up to 80 feet in length.
No matter the size, the interior of a tent or hut was not
divided but rather formed a single dwelling space, one area of
which was used for sleeping, another for cooking. If a shelter
did not sit on a platform, its fl oor was oft en sunken and either
left bare or covered with clay, bark, or brush. Th ere was no
chimney, and smoke escaped through entryways, gaps in the
walls, or openings left in hut roofs and tent tops.
SETTLING DOWN
Agriculture appeared in Europe around 7000 b.c.e., and the
migratory hunter-gatherers eventually became settled farm-
ers and transformed their temporary shelters into more per-
manent buildings. Th is process took several thousand years
to complete. By 2000 b.c.e. individual farmsteads and farm-
ing communities existed throughout ancient Europe. With-
in them were homes, barns, storage sheds, workshops, and
cookhouses, sometimes all in the same structure but oft en in
separate buildings.
Although elaborations and variations were eventually
made to the design of these structures, the basic features re-
mained constant throughout the ancient period. Some an-
cient Europeans who came under the infl uence of Greece
and Rome, particularly those living in regions conquered by
the Romans, adopted all or part of their architecture. How-
ever, even in Roman-controlled Gaul (roughly modern-day
France), Iberia (present-day Spain and Portugal), and Britain
(modern-day England), the more traditional architecture of
ancient Europe remained the preference of many.
building techniques and materials
Th e buildings of ancient Europe were commonly either cir-
cular or rectangular. Both kinds of structures were found
all over the continent, although a specifi c region generally
favored one design over the other. Th us many of the people
of central and northwestern Europe built rectangular struc-
tures. Elsewhere, the circular house, or roundhouse, predom-
inated, as it did in Britain even into the period of the Roman
conquest in the fi rst century of the Common Era.
Th e square was also a popular shape, and some oval-
shaped structures existed. In northern France during the
fi ft h millennium b.c.e. some buildings were shaped like trap-
ezoids, which have only two sides parallel, unlike rectangles
that have all four sides parallel. Again unlike the rectangle,
in which each side is the same length as its parallel partner,
in the trapezoid one of the parallel sides is shorter than the
other. Th e size of a building generally depended on its use:
A house was larger than a storehouse, and a home meant
for several families was larger than one intended for a single
family. Accordingly, roundhouses varied in size from 15 to
70 feet across.
Rectangular buildings also varied in size. Small square
buildings were 15 feet on a side, while larger rectangular
structures averaged lengths of 100 feet. Th e latter were known
as longhouses; they fi rst appeared in central Europe some-
time aft er 5500 b.c.e. and eventually spread to western and
northern Europe, where they remained in use through the
early centuries c.e. Longhouses were not only long, ranging
from 33 feet to 246 feet in length, but they were also narrow,
between 16½ and 23 feet in width. An average-sized long-
house could accommodate 20 to 30 people, either a large
extended family or several smaller families, as opposed to
smaller houses meant for a single nuclear family.HOUSE EXTERIORS
Both circular and rectangular buildings served people as
homes. Some of these ancient European houses had founda-
tions of stone or wooden beams. River- and lakeside struc-
tures oft en sat on platforms supported by sturdy wooden
posts a few feet or yards high; thus they were high enough to
be above normal fl ood levels. A few houses in Italy actually
were set on platforms erected over water, with supports for
these platforms being as much as 30 feet in length, taller than
many modern homes.
Most houses—indeed, most buildings of any kind—of
ancient Europe, whether circular or rectangular, had wood-
en walls, though those in regions with few trees were made
of stone and those in dry regions of bricks of dried mud. A
few of the timber structures were log cabins, similar to those
later favored by many American pioneers. More commonly,
however, timber houses had walls of wattle stretched between
upright posts and covered with daub for weather proofi ng.
Wattle was made from vertical bundles of reeds or wooden
stakes through which thin rods of wood were woven hori-
zontally, while daub was a mixture of soil and clay along with
grass, straw, animal hair, or dung. Dried daub was both hard
and weather resistant. Th e upright posts were set at the cor-
ners of rectangular houses and evenly spaced around the cir-
cumference of roundhouses. Th e walls frequently had a coat
of whitewash, made by crushing limestone or seashells and
mixing with water. Whitewashing was both decorative, giv-
ing the exterior a glossy white appearance, and practical, since
it further protected the walls from the eff ects of weather.
Rising from the top of the walls of most ancient Euro-
pean buildings were pitched roofs (typically two sided and
sloped), which ascended at steep angles of 45 to 55 degrees
and were generally covered in thatch, peat, or turf. Pitched
roofs were needed because they allowed rain and snow to
slide off rather than collecting on and possibly collapsing the
roof. Some roofs had eaves, which were roof edges extending70 architecture: Europe