Prehistoric Shelters and Early Thatch

The first roofs were almost certainly made of plant material, hides or bone, none of which survive well. What archaeologists find are traces: rings of charcoal, post holes, stone arrangements and piles of large bones. From these they reconstruct the shapes of shelters, but the exact roof covering is usually a matter of informed guesswork.

Earliest evidence

Terra Amata (Nice, France). Excavated by Henry de Lumley in 1966, this beach site was interpreted as a camp of huts made of skins over poles, around central hearths, dated to roughly 380,000 years ago. The interpretation is disputed. Archaeologist Paola Villa argued the stone arrangements could have formed naturally and that the layers were mixed, making both the huts and the dating uncertain.

Ohalo II (Sea of Galilee, Israel). Around 23,000 years old, the site preserves six oval charcoal rings, each about 2.7-4.9 m (9-16 ft) long, left by huts of branches and brushwood. They are often described as the world's oldest known brush dwellings, and the site also gives some of the earliest evidence for plant bedding.

Mezhyrich (Ukraine). About 15,000 years ago, people built four huts from a total of 149 mammoth bones. A farmer found the first bone in 1965 while enlarging his cellar. How the frames were covered is not recorded in the evidence.

Origins of thatch

Researchers think Late Palaeolithic shelters in Europe may have used reed, heather or rushes, but there is no direct archaeological proof. Straw thatch probably began in the Neolithic, once people grew cereal crops and had straw as a by-product. In Europe, direct physical evidence of thatch survives only from the early medieval period.

Why so little survives

Plant roofs decay within decades unless burned, waterlogged or frozen. Even burning usually destroys the structure. As a result the long history of thatch, turf and bark roofing is reconstructed mainly from later traditional buildings, written records and ethnography rather than from surviving prehistoric roofs.

Legacy

Vegetable roofing never disappeared. Thatch, palm leaf, grass and turf roofs remain in use across Africa, Asia, the Pacific and northern Europe, and their techniques are a living link to the earliest shelters.