Neolithic architecture

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Neolithic settlement Skara Brae on Orkney / Scotland

The Neolithic architecture begins with the Neolithic revolution , which means a change in the food supply (livestock and agriculture) and -bevorratung.

Even before the Neolithic there were at least semi-settled hunters and gatherers as well as fishermen , e.g. B. in Natufien . The bearers of the hunter cultures could, as the houses made of mammoth bones from Molodowa and Mal'ta (Russia) show, build reasonably solid structures. Cedar longhouses are documented from the northwest coast of North America ( Haida and Tlingit ).

Already before 13,000 BC The first arable farmers settled in the Levant , which is regarded as the starting point for the spread of arable farming both east and west. The early Neolithic culture arose in Syria , Lebanon , Jordan , Israel and Palestine , Iraq and southeastern Anatolia . The new economy reached around 8,300 BC. BC the previously deserted Cyprus is around 7000 BC. . BC on Crete arrived and reaches about 5500 v. Chr. Central Europe . The culture of cattle breeders (nomads), which started at the same time and spread largely without fixed structures, left hardly any structural traces.

House shape

A basic distinction must be made between round and rectangular buildings. While the latter can be expanded into multi-section constructions by attachments, this is difficult with the former. Round houses can be found primarily in the Pre-Ceramic Neolithic level A of the Levant and Cyprus, but also in the Neolithic of western Turkey, and also in the Middle Neolithic of Great Britain in connection with the Grooved Ware ( Skara Brae , Gwithian , Durrington Walls ), where they each developed independently .

In Mesopotamia and the adjoining Mediterranean area , as well as in the highlands of Anatolia , the following archetypes of residential buildings are developing:

Srefe

Srefen are reed huts that were built in the Arab region in their original style until the 20th century. They consist of tied bundles of reeds that were dug into the ground opposite at regular intervals. At their upper ends they were bent into ribs and tied together. A longitudinal structure made of reeds or wooden poles is attached over it, creating a barrel frame. The scaffolding was covered with clay or reed mats. This type of construction is called a roof house and already includes structural elements of the arch and the rib. Together with the roof structure and the roof skin, the original shape of the barrel vault was created.

Round house

Round houses are considered the oldest form of the house and they are still being built today. Their distribution has been proven in the Neolithic from the edge of the Alps to Mongolia . This shape of the house probably originated from the circle around the hearth fire or from the shape of the nomad tent, which was built from three to four poles in a stone ring. In Mesopotamia, lightweight construction was replaced early on by clay or stone construction. The oldest known houses of this type were found in Jericho ( 6000 BC - brick construction), Tappa Gaura ( 5000 BC - rammed earth construction), Pont-sur-Seine (4,500 BC. Wooden structures of 80 m²) and Arpadschije Tell Halaf ( 4000 BC - field stone construction), as well as in Cyprus ( 3500 BC - field stone construction) discovered. The beehive houses, the roof of which is conically elevated, also belong to the type of round houses. In Cyprus a type was discovered which, in contrast to Mesopotamian forms, contained a mezzanine floor at a height of 2.30 m, which covered half the circular area. In some cases, the round house was also combined with rectangular porches. The round house in Tappa Gaura has a diameter of about five meters and is made of clay. Knot-like reinforcements in the clay walls and a buttress in a semicircular shape reinforce the construction. The round house in Arpadschije already has a diameter of ten meters and has a roof made of a single-shell dome . This form of the cantilever vault was later increased to monumental size in the Aegean.

Rectangular house

Rectangular houses offer many advantages over round houses, for example they can be constructed in a way that is more appropriate to the material (e.g. for wood and bricks), and can be better divided, expanded and combined. The earliest known houses of this type can be found in Jericho and Çatal Hüyük (6000 BC), Qalaat Jarmo (5000 BC) and Tell Hassuna (4750 BC). In Jericho there is a special type of polished floor houses where the vertical walls are made of brickwork and the floor is made of colored screed. The rectangular houses were probably accessed via flat roofs.

With the expansion of agriculture, the type of farmhouse is developed. A homestead with a rectangular system was discovered in Tell Hassuna. It consists of a nave with access on the long side, the so-called transverse access. This is in contrast to the later megaron building . A side wing is attached to the nave, which probably housed a stable or equipment store. The main house consists of a main room on the gable sides of which two smaller rooms are connected. The walls consisted of vertical brickwork, which was reinforced on the gable sides with buttresses. The roof was probably a thatched gable roof . In front of the house were walled courtyards, which were also reinforced by pillars. Wall rings in the ground served as silos or cisterns .

Building material

The building material depends on the available raw materials and the processing options.

Clay

The Neolithic inhabitants of the Levant , Anatolia, Syria, northern Mesopotamia and Central Asia developed the construction method with adobe bricks . In the pre-ceramic Neolithic , buildings with limestone soils were built (including in Çayönü ). Wall paintings come from Çatalhöyük and ʿAin Ghazal in Jordan. Also rammed earth (pisé) was used for construction of houses. In areas with little rain, the remains of mud houses are used to create settlement mounds, so-called tells . You can find them from the Levant to Hungary.

Wood

In Europe, houses were often built from wickerwork wooden posts covered with a coarse clay plaster. Usually only the post holes are preserved.

stone

Structures made of dry stone are known from Scotland ( Rinyo , Skara Brae , Knap of Howar ), Brittany , Spain and Portugal ( Zambujal , Villanova de Sao Pedro) .

colour

The Franco-German architect Jacques Ignace Hittorff (1792–1867) caused a sensation in 1830 with a memorandum . Hittorff turned against the antiquity of authoritative classical archaeologists , who were of the opinion that classical Greek architecture and sculpture were brilliantly white. He didn't worry about the past . Replicas of Bronze Age and Iron Age houses still appear in monotonous natural colors, at best whitewashed.

In 1955, settlement pits belonging to the late Bronze Age Helmsdorf group were found in Rottelsdorf ( Saxony-Anhalt ) . One pit contained, among other things, a large amount of wall plaster made of clay. On a white clay or kaolin mud , parallel stripes are painted with red bolus (a widespread, clayey, iron oxide-containing earth color). In one piece the strip bends at right angles, in another two points can be seen. A break line shows that the decorative paintwork has been renewed again and again. Up to 13 layers are on top of each other. The colors are clays ; probably they did not contain any other binding agent, probably not even lime. The colors are therefore repeatedly weathered, so that they were repainted - maybe every spring. During the spring cleaning, the houses - to be whitewashed with colored lime coatings - was still common among the Mansfeld miners until the middle of the 20th century.

location

Lakeside settlements

Wetland settlements (formerly called pile dwellings ) have existed since the Neolithic. They consist of structures that were erected in marshland, on the banks of waters or on islands. They rarely stood directly in the water ( Reutte , Hornstaad ).

Neolithic wetland settlements are represented throughout the circumalpine region and as terramars in northern Italy, for example on Mondsee ( municipality of Mondsee ), Attersee and Lake Zurich (municipality of Horgen ).

Remains of riverbank settlements have also been excavated in wetlands in Northern Germany ( Hüde am Dümmer ), Sweden ( Alvastra , Dimple Ceramic Culture ) and Scotland ( Eilean Dhomhnuill , Hebrides).

Examples of neolithic buildings

South asia

Middle East

Central Europe

Western Europe

Megalithic systems

The majority of the megalithic systems date from the Neolithic. The best known is the multiphase Stonehenge in England, which was expanded to its present form in the late Neolithic . These facilities include megalithic tombs, so-called temples as well as arrangements of unexplained function. The oldest megalithic structures in the world , around 9000 years old, are the so-called "T-pillars" from Göbekli Tepe ( Turkey ).

See also

literature

  • Archaeological Service of the Canton of Bern (Ed.): The Neolithic bank settlements of Twann. Vol. 1-20, 1977-1981.
  • Hans-Jürgen Beier, R. Einicke: The Neolithic in the Middle Elbe-Saale area and in the Altmark. 1994.
  • A. de Capitani et al. a .: The Neolithic lakeside settlement Arbon-Bleiche 3 , finds. In: Arch. Im Thurgau. 11 (2002).
  • Cyril Dworsky, Thomas Reitmaier: Wait a minute, there was something else! News on pile dwelling archeology in Mond and Attersee 1854-2004: 150 years of discovery of pile dwellings. In: Arch. Austria. 15, H. 2, 2004, pp. 4-15.
  • A. Fischer, K. Kristiansen (Eds.): The neolithization of Denmark. 150 years of debate. Sheffield 2002.
  • Klaus Günther: The megalithic graves Henglarn I and Wewelsburg I in the Paderborn region. In: Bodenaltert. Westphalia. 28 (1992).
  • Walter Guyan: The moor settlement in the "Weier" near Thayngen. In: The first farmers. Exhibition catalog Zurich. 1990, pp. 213-220.
  • A. Hafner: Lattrigen VI-Riedstation: Settlement plan and building history of a Neolithic village. In: Bank settlements on Lake Biel. 4, Bern 1992.
  • Henning Haßmann : The stone artifacts of the fortified Neolithic settlement of Büdelsdorf, Rendsburg-Eckernförde district. In: UPA. 62 (2000).
  • Stefan Hiller : The Neolithic settlement hill of Karanovo . In: Archeology in Austria. 4, 1993, pp. 50-60.
  • Stefan Hiller: Karanovo. Contributions to the Neolithic in Southeast Europe. 2000.
  • M. Kolb among others: Settlements of the Pfyn culture in Easter of the pile-dwelling bay of Sipplingen, Lake Constance district. In: Hemmenhofen scripts. 4, Vol. 1-2, 2004.
  • E. König: Animal bones from a damp settlement of the Chamer Group in Dietfurt- Griesstetten , Neumarkt district.
  • Jens Lüning: A settlement of the Middle Neolithic group Bischheim in Schernau, district Kitzingen. 1989.
  • HH Müller: Painted wall plaster from a settlement pit of the late Bronze Age from Rottelsdorf Kreis Eisleben In: Excavations and finds. 4 Berlin 1959, pp. 15-18.
  • D. Raetzel-Fabian: Calden, earthworks and burial place of the early Neolithic. Architecture - ritual - chronology. In: UPA. Bonn 2000.
  • Christoph Willms: Two sites of the Michelsberg culture from the western Münsterland. 1982.
  • Claus Wolf: The lakeside settlement of Yverdon. In: Avenue des Sports. CAR 59 (Lausanne 1993).
  • Claus Wolf: News on the architecture of the end of the Neolithic in western Switzerland. In: platform. 7/8, 1998/99, pp. 107-117.
  • Werner Müller, Gunther Vogel: dtv atlas on architecture . 1st edition. Deutscher Taschenbuchverlag GmbH & Co.KG, Munich 1974, ISBN 3-423-03020-8 , p. 83-85 .

Web link

Commons : Dolmen  album with pictures, videos and audio files