II. The origin of architecture in the era of the primitive communal system. primitive architecture

The history of human construction activity, which served as the basis for the emergence of architecture, begins from the time when ancient people (Neanderthals), not content with shelters created by nature (grottoes, rock canopies and caves; Fig. 1 and 2), began to adapt these shelters for temporary and permanent habitation, i.e., to build dwellings. Among such structures are: paved with stone parking lots of La Ferrasi and Castillo, circular fences made of stones with internal stone hearths - Ilskaya parking lot, artificial residential depressions, fenced along the edge with a blockage of stones - Wolf Grotto parking lot, etc. (Fig. 3 ).

This is what the dwellings of the Middle Paleolithic looked like. According to the latest data, the Middle Paleolithic of Europe ended about 35 thousand years ago.

The Middle Paleolithic (Mousterian culture) is characterized by the following main changes that have taken place in people's lives: the acquisition of skills and the improvement of methods for making fire, the manufacture of clothes from skins, the improvement of flint processing techniques, and hence the general improvement of tools and hunting, which due to this becomes more productive. A person has the opportunity to create stocks of food for the future and use free time for the creation of highly specialized tools, the manufacture of wood and bone products. The rudiments of art and house-building appear.

The specific reason for the emergence of construction was a sharp climate change associated with the maximum Dnieper (Ris) glaciation and necessitated a more thorough mastery of fire, the manufacture of warm clothes and the creation of permanent dwellings.

The warm climate of the Shellic period of the early Paleolithic made it possible not to worry about housing and clothing at all, but already in the Acheulian stage that followed it, glaciation began, which then, in the Mousterian period (Middle Paleolithic), forced people not only to actively develop caves and adapt them for housing , but also to create artificial residential structures (see Fig. 1).

5. Paleolithic dwelling in Pushkar I (reconstruction by V. Zaporozhskaya) and the remains of the bones that formed the structural basis of the Paleolithic dwelling

The need to build gave rise to another need - to create the tools necessary for this. In this regard, the two main types of tools characteristic of the Mousterian culture - flint pointed and scraper, necessary in hunting production, were supplemented with a scraper. With the help of this tool, it was possible not only to butcher an animal carcass, but also to peel off the bark from a log and plan it.

At that time, such chopping tools as an ax did not yet appear (Fig. 4), and a hand ax similar to it in its main function, which came in this period from the era of the Shellic and Acheulean culture, was of little use for its construction purposes, since it was impossible to cut a thick tree with it. Therefore, branches and thin trunks of trees, as well as bones of large mammals, mainly mammoths, were used as structural elements of dwellings at that time (Fig. 5).

According to the Dniester archaeological expedition of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR (1955-1958), at the Molodovo I site, located near the village of Molodova in the Chernivtsi region, the remains of 15 bonfires were traced inside the fences of large mammoth bones. Skulls, shoulder blades, pelvic bones, tusks, lower jaws and limb bones of mammoths were used as building material. “The dwellings of their ichthyophages,” says Strabo, “off the coast of Ethiopia are built mainly from the bones of large fish and from shells, using ribs for beams and supports, and jaws for doors” (XV, 2, 2).

People of that time arranged their camps not only in grottoes, caves and under the canopies of rocks. They also had to live on the plains, where it was necessary to build not only summer, mostly light and temporary dwellings, such as wind barriers and huts, but also winter, more permanent dwellings - dugouts, which were small depressions in the ground of a roughly oval shape.

The heat in such dwellings was maintained by bonfires, which were built in special hearth pits, arranged directly in the dirt floor, in recesses lined with stones.

All this was facilitated by the elementary division of labor by sex, age and experience that had already appeared among the Neanderthals, which was the result of a natural complication of the labor process itself and the tools associated with it.

The appearance of a skebel, characterizing the beginning of specialization, a construction tool, at the same time clearly indicates what kind of structures and what construction and technical level could be implemented with its help (Fig. 6). Judging by the nature of this instrument, they were not large and were very rough in decoration and primitive in shape, depressions in the ground or fences made of large mammoth bones, stone and earth (Molodovo V), covered with poles, branches, grass and skins. The most primitive ground structures of that time, huts, should have looked the same (Fig. 7).

At the stage of the early Mousterian culture, the primitive team of hunters numbered - as can be judged, in particular, from the population density of the Kiik-Koba cave (Crimea) - from 30 to 50 people and occupied an area of ​​about 70 m 2. These calculations were made by the archaeologist G.A. Bonch-Osmolovsky (1940). According to P.P. Efimenko (1953), such a group could reach up to 100 units, and according to Yu.I. Semenov (1966), its minimum composition was 35-40, maximum 75-90 and optimal 50-60 people. In accordance with these data, an idea should be formed about the size of the dwellings of interest to us, which existed during the period of the Mousterian culture.

Probably, the earliest of them, while the influence of glaciation did not yet have a significant effect, were open camps, then sheds, niches, grottoes, crevices, caves, depressions, dugouts appeared, and, finally, ground, initially very small, then larger, and by the end of this period, large dwellings of the Molodovo I type also appeared. The 15 fireplaces found here indicate that in this case we already have signs of the appearance of a significant communal dwelling, which then became characteristic of residential buildings of the Upper (Late) Paleolithic.

The latter circumstance is explained by the fact that by this time, i.e., in the later Mousterian period, when the Neanderthals were on the verge of becoming people of a modern physical type, their collective was a primitive tribal commune of considerable numerical composition. Thus, the Neanderthals were not only the first hominids to create the earliest social collective, but also the first human builders to create the earliest human habitation.

From what has been said, it follows that the appearance of dwellings among European Neanderthals was associated mainly with the need to hide from the cold. But this reason cannot be considered the only one, since this type of people at the indicated time spread throughout the globe, including the African continent, the tropics and subtropics, where, as you know, the general cooling did not have a significant impact on climate change. The glacial epoch of the countries of the temperate zone in the tropics and subtropics corresponded to an epoch associated with frequent and heavy rains.

In this region of the world climatic conditions could not serve as a direct motive for the emergence of house-building and the intensification of people's activities in this direction, as well as in the warm periods of the Shellic and Acheulean culture. Here, the development of construction, of course, proceeded at a slower pace and was determined by specific, peculiar forms. natural environment, production (hunting), life and family and tribal organization; they could not help but differ from the conditions in which there were hunting groups of their brethren, who lived in the area surrounded by a glacier, earned their livelihood in areas with cold, damp, rainy summers and rather frosty winters, needed warm, roomy, durable and permanent permanent dwelling.

10. Novakh earthen house and Yokuts huts made of magnolia

On the African continent, even in the Sahara, during the period of the Mousterian culture, deep rivers, flora and fauna were rich and diverse. It is natural that among the inhabitants of these places, thanks to the abundance of ready-made gifts of nature, gathering in relation to hunting continued to maintain a large share, and therefore there could not be a special incentive to intensively improve hunting, and therefore others, including those associated with construction. , tools. To protect yourself from rain and wind, it was enough to arrange a light wind barrier, similar to the one that has survived among the Vedda tribe to our time (Fig. 8), or to make a canopy of large palm leaves, sticking them with cuttings into the ground, or to build a flooring on branches of a large tree, covering it overhead with smaller branches and grass (Fig. 9), or, finally, build a small hut on the ground from poles stuck into the ground, covered with branches, leaves, grass or bark, and sometimes also sprinkled on top of this land, approximately as it was done among the Novakhs, who lived among the Indians of the southwest North America(Fig. 10).

Larger scale residential buildings in these latitudes appeared when overall balance not only vegetable, but also animal food began to decrease significantly and hunters were forced to significantly modify and improve the nature of their hunting and labor tools. We will talk about this later, but for now, in order to complete the description of the earliest stage of the emergence of construction activity, it should be noted that at the same time the earliest and most primitive types of memorial structures appeared - Neanderthal burials.

It has been established that Neanderthals deliberately created special grave pits to bury their dead. So, in France, in the Mustier cave (department of Haute-Garonne), the skeleton of a young man was discovered, buried in a recess in a sleeping position on his right side. At his outstretched left hand lay a scraper and a hand axe. In France, in the cave of La Ferrassi, six skeletons were found lying in artificial recesses; one of these graves was covered with a stone slab. These recesses in the ground, made for the purpose of burial, suggest that at the same time Neanderthal man could make the same recesses for the construction of dwellings (dugouts).

Let us now turn to the next stage in the development of the construction activity of primitive man - the Upper (Late) Paleolithic.

This era of the most ancient history of mankind, if we use its traditional periodization, consists of three periods, including the Aurignacian, Solutrean and Madeleine cultures.

The early period of the Upper Paleolithic - the Aurignacian, like the Mousterian, covers a period of time from about 40 to 14 thousand years. During this period, for the first time, permanent winter communal dwellings appeared and were widely distributed, both in the form of large dugouts and in the form of large ground structures. The nature of land-based Paleolithic dwellings can be judged not only by archaeological data, but also by schematic representations left to posterity by primitive artists on the walls of caves. Such ground dwellings (see Fig. 9) were, apparently, mainly frame-type structures - huts made of twigs, or tent-type, made of poles and having a conical shape, as well as semi-dugouts covered with two slopes.

The climate of this time, initially cold and dry, gradually, as the glaciers retreated, became more and more humid, and by the end of the Upper Paleolithic period was relatively close to modern.

By the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic, the Neanderthal was replaced by the Cro-Magnon man, a new type of man who, according to his anthropological data, does not differ from modern people (Fig. 11).

The dwellings of these people, the remains of their stone industry, which characterizes their main occupation, were also found in especially large numbers in France in the departments of Dordogne (La Combe cave, Blanchard canopy, De la Rochette canopy) and Charente (Fontechevade, La -Chez, La Quina, Vashon Canopy, Des Roi Cave).

There are also known sites of people from the period of the Aurignacian culture, found in Spain, Germany, Czechoslovakia, the USSR and others. European countries, as well as in Southwest Asia - the sites of Kzar-Akil, Jebel Qafzeh, Mugarel el wad, etc.

This early period of the Upper Paleolithic, or the period of the Aurignacian and Solutrean cultures, can be socially regarded as the period of the formation of an early tribal society, which is characterized by the presence of exogamy, matriarchy, a strong settled way of life, and the improvement of the chipping technique in the manufacture of stone tools. Primitive realistic art appears: drawing, painting, high relief, round sculpture. Then, in the late time of the Upper Paleolithic (Madleian culture), jewelry (various bracelets and necklaces) and various household items were widely distributed.

Compared with the period of the Mousterian culture, the tools of labor became very diverse, but the most important of them remained the chisel and scraper; the first was intended for the processing of hard, and the second - for the processing of soft materials. Nuclei from disk-shaped became prismatic, i.e., correctly faceted, and knife-shaped plates, which, being larger, used to serve only as material for the manufacture of various tools, now began to serve as very good cutting tools.

The early pores of the Upper Paleolithic are characterized by their prevalence of dwellings that are roughly oval in plan and have one hearth. Most often, such structures are dugouts; a significant number of them were found in different parts of the territory of the USSR. The remains of such a structure were discovered by P.P. Efimenko (1937) at the so-called Telman site near the village of Kostenki near Voronezh. It was round in plan, had a diameter of 5.2-5.6 m and was deepened by 50-70 cm. Eliseevichi and Yudinozo) and in other places.

It should be noted here that a great merit in the discovery, study and description of Paleolithic dwellings belongs to Soviet archaeologists, who put all these studies on a truly scientific basis.

At the site of Kostenki II P.I. Boriskovsky (1953) discovered the remains of a larger dwelling than the Telman one. Its diameter is 7-8 meters. At the bottom of the dwelling were mammoth bones, some of which were dug into the ground and formed the structural elements of the walls and roof. There was a hearth in the center of the dwelling. A.P. Okladnikov (1940) at the Buret site (Irkutsk region) studied the remains of an entire Late Paleolithic settlement, which consisted of four small oval dwellings.

In addition to the above-mentioned round and oval dwellings, in the Late Paleolithic era there were also elongated dwellings, larger in size than the first ones. They were, as it were, oval dugouts with several hearths attached to one another and connected to each other. The last circumstance, as P.I. Boriskovsky, points out that the primitive house-building technique that existed at that time had not yet developed the most convenient form of a large communal dwelling.

The remains of two such elongated dwellings were discovered by A.N. Rogachev (1938) in the lower cultural layer of the Kostenki IV site. The southern of these dwellings was 34, and the northern 23 m long; the width of both was 5.5 m, and the floor was deepened by 20-30 cm. Hearths were located on the floor of each dwelling along its longitudinal axis; in the north there were 9, and in the south - more than 10. In this dwelling no accumulations of large bones were found, which could indicate their use as structural elements. This suggests that in Kostenki IV not only a new layout of housing took place, but also a certain type of structure characterizing its three-dimensional construction was applied.

On the territory of the USSR, there was another type of structures of the late Paleolithic, from which there were residential areas 500-800 m 2 in size. They were not deepened into the ground and, apparently, served as a habitat for a whole family. Similar areas, probably covered with a hut, in Kostenki I were 35 m long and 16 m wide. Hearths were located along their long axis at a distance of 2 m from each other.

The remains of such dwellings were found in the village. Andeevo near Kursk in 1946-1949. The length of the residential area in this case was 45 m, and the width was 20 m. it was already a large ground dwelling, the basis of which was a post-and-beam structure.

In the Late Paleolithic, temporary hunting camps existed simultaneously with the indicated types of dwellings.

At the very end of this era, during the periods of the late Solutrean and Madeleine culture, permanent dwellings on the modern territory of the USSR disappeared. Their place was taken by seasonal camps located along the banks of the rivers, which, in the time following the Late Paleolithic, began to serve as the main source of obtaining a livelihood.

Large dugouts, semi-dugouts and ground dwellings, which had walls with a frame made of bones of large mammals, were replaced by small dwellings such as modern summer houses and huts.

It should be noted here that the Late Paleolithic is significant not only because during this period the entire appearance of our distant ancestors finally changed and a certain type of dwellings created by them appeared, but also because at that time a completely new sphere of human activity arose - art. The latter deserves a few special words about it, since without the mastery of art, a person could not so quickly rise to that stage of building activity, which is called architecture.

The leading subjects of this entire period, which included Aurignacian, Solutrean and Madeleine art, were images of animals in drawing and painting, and the image of a woman mother in sculpture. The first is explained by the fact that the daily need to know well main object of her hunting, in order to master it more easily, and the second, naturally, was connected with the role that belonged to a woman at that time, both economically and physiologically. Abundant material confirming what has been said has been collected by archaeologists in all, almost without exception, countries of the world.

The art of the Aurignacian period is characterized by numerous images of animals found in the Castillo Cave (Spain). Most of them are made in the form of linear silhouettes applied with red paint; two contour drawings of horses are made with fine engraving. An interesting engraved image of a horse in the Horne de la Peña cave (Spain). By the end of this period, the ability to accurately grasp and convey not only the basic outlines of the general shape of the animal, but also its proportions, as well as the characteristic movements of its body, is observed.

Among the best statuettes of this era, depicting a female body, with sharply emphasized signs of gender, along with those found in Willendorf (Lower Austria) and some other places in Europe, can be attributed ivory figurines found in Kostenki I and in the village of Gagarino, Voronezhskaya areas.

In the subsequent - Solutrean - and the beginning of the Madeleine period, the linear image of the animal is supplemented by shading along the contour, revealing individual parts of its body: ears, eyes, nostrils, mouth, etc., and modeling of the entire form begins, turning it from a planar into a three-dimensional one.

Polychrome painting reached its greatest flourishing in the Madeleine period, when the primitive artist learned to model the form with the help of not only a stroke, but also color. Excellent examples of such primitive realistic painting are found in large numbers in the caves of France: La Madeleine, Font de Gome, Lascaux, etc. and Spain: Castillo, Altamira, Horne de la Peña (Fig. 12).

The main object of the image was large mammals and herbivores (mammoth, deer, bison, horse), as well as often large predators, the habits and mode of action of which could not but be in the field of view of the primitive hunter artist (Fig. 13). But the time came when the plains began to overgrow with forests and these large animals (especially the mammoth) began to die out relatively quickly, and the herds of bison and wild horses greatly decreased. At the same time, the art associated with their images gradually sank into oblivion, which, due to the change in the object of the image, could no longer serve the goals of knowledge so actively and therefore lost its sharpness of perception, and hence the reflection of reality, which we will talk about separately.

Of course, this does not mean at all that all the experience accumulated by people in mastering color, line and form was completely lost. It came in handy when creating decorations related to household items, weapons, clothing, shoes and housing. But this did not happen soon.

Mankind has entered a new phase of its existence - the Middle Stone Age (Mesolithic). This period lasted only a few thousand years (from 12 to 5 thousand years BC), but had its own characteristics both in economic and purely technical terms.

In connection with the changes that have taken place in the fauna of Europe, as well as in other places affected by glaciation, the very object of hunting has changed significantly, and, consequently, the tools necessary for it should have changed. With a change in the number of large animals, the hunter's attention naturally began to attract smaller animals, as well as fish and birds. Bows, arrows, spears and microliths appeared, i.e. tools made from small stones, and then the so-called insert technique for their use: a person began to put a stone in a specially prepared socket-sleeve (holder) of a handle made of durable wood or bone.

Driven hunting on a large scale, associated with the need to have a large hunting team, has lost its meaning. Now, under the new conditions of a sharp reduction in the possibility of obtaining a large amount of food at once for one trip to the fishery, it was difficult for such a team to feed itself, and it was forced to decrease in its composition and become more mobile. Therefore, during this period, areas convenient for driven hunting, i.e., located near cliffs, clefts and rocks, ceased to serve as a place for long-term habitation. This is reflected in multilayer sites with a number of thin lenses of the cultural layer, for example, in a number of sites near the Dnieper rapids, etc. The areas of these sites are small, which indicates the fragmentation of communities. The same is evidenced by the disappearance of large communal houses, which are now being replaced by small dugouts and huts. These are the sites of Elin Bor, Gremyache, Gorki (USSR), Dufort (France), a number of sites in Czechoslovakia and other countries.

New economic and purely technical opportunities that arose during this period had a direct impact on construction. The appearance of special tools (microliths) and the insertion technique for their use led to significant progress in primitive construction and made it possible to erect the necessary buildings much faster than before.

The next and, moreover, the most significant step in this direction was taken at the beginning of the era of the new Stone Age - the Neolithic. It was associated with the appearance of such a tool as a stone ax, which radically changed all the methods of wood processing used before it. In addition, this tool played a significant role in the development of agriculture, making it possible to clear the land needed by the farmer from the forest (“slash-and-burn agriculture”).

The ax began to play a particularly important role when the technique of grinding stone tools was mastered. This role is well revealed by the Soviet researcher S.A. Semenov. “In the Neolithic,” he writes, “society begins to process axes and adzes with a grinding technique. This fact, of course, is regarded as a progressive achievement. But the researchers, stating this fact and noting the improvement in the processing of wood, do not note what consequences this leads to. In fact, this narrowly technical achievement opens a new era in the history of mankind. Huge expanses of the globe, still uninhabited, become available for settlement and development thanks to the polished ax and adze. The development of the forest regions of the northern hemisphere, the tropics and the island world in pacific ocean occurs not only because polished axes were much more productive than unpolished ones in felling trees for dwellings, boats, pile structures, in slash-and-burn agriculture, but also because the grinding technique made it possible to manufacture these tools from rocks"(S.A. Semenov. Primitive technology. M., 1957, p. 229.).

Polishing at this time was mainly subjected to woodworking tools, which significantly benefited from this in terms of their productivity. The polishing of stone tools made their forms more distinct, and this led to their differentiation.

15. Pueblo Bonito. General view (reconstruction) and plan

16. Trypillia culture: sectional dwelling and painted ceramics (v. Zhura)

17. Longhouse of the Seneca-Iroquois tribe. General view and plan (according to L.G. Morgan)

At the end of the Neolithic, polished tools were sometimes subjected to drilling. Such a tool, having a drilled hole, could be mounted on a handle. Most often, such an attachment was made with polished axes (Fig. 14).

The main occupations of the Neolithic people, where the tribal system was already flourishing, were developed hunting and fishing, which competed with it, as well as pottery that arose at that time. Cattle breeding, which owed its origin to the domestication of wild animals, and agriculture, genetically associated with gathering, were at that time still in their infancy.

Both hunting for animals and birds and fishing required a fairly large team of people, but not to the extent that it was in the Mesolithic, since now, thanks to the appearance of the bow and arrows, perfect tools for fishing (harpoon, spear, net and hook), the overall productivity of hunting in the forest and fishing on the water has increased significantly. This allowed hunting tribal groups to gather again in large camps and build huge dwellings (up to 300 m 2 in area) such as a huge round hut found in the village of Kelteminar, which could accommodate more than 100 people under one roof at the same time. (This site dating from the 4th millennium BC was found in the lower reaches of the Amu Darya, in the Turtkul region, Uzbek SSR). In such a huge hut, most likely, a team of a whole family was placed.

Simultaneously with this type of settlement of a whole family, there were other types of them, for example, campsites, consisting of 10-12 separate small dugouts covered with a hut, with a hearth in the middle, in which 5-6 people were accommodated, which usually testified to surviving phenomena associated with previous construction period.

To this type of structures can also be attributed the round well-shaped underground dwellings built by the Indians of the south-west of North America - kiva, which were probably ancient, since they had a flat roof with a light-smoke opening, which simultaneously served as an entrance; it was possible to get through it into the dwelling by a ladder. Apparently, from here this way of using the stairs then passed, according to tradition, to all Indian pueblos (Fig. 15).

Probably, the ancient buildings of the Mexican Estufa Indians, which later took on a different form, had a similar shape.

The main building material from which these dwellings were built was wood.

Closed dwellings of this type, inaccessible from the outside, were built at that time in other parts of the world, wherever people used a polished stone axe, and they used it everywhere in the Neolithic.

A characteristic feature of the large dwellings of that time, which had a centric plan, was that they had several small domestic hearths inside and one large one - a common central hearth for cult purposes.

We note, by the way, that in general the gradual appearance of a cult hearth (altar), its isolation for use only for ritual purposes, and in connection with this, the appearance in the future of separate places of worship(altars) and buildings (temples) marked the emergence of not only property, but also general social inequality, the development of which was promoted in every possible way by the leaders of the tribes who gradually strengthened not only their military, but also economic power, as well as clergy who contributed to this in every possible way.

By the same time as the dwelling in the village of Kelteminar, that is, by the 4th millennium BC. e., also include the early houses of the Trypillia culture, found on the territory of the right-bank Ukraine, along the lower and middle Dnieper, Bug and Dniester (Fig. 16). These houses are gradually replaced by very large multi-hearth dwellings, divided into several rooms (Fig. 17).

In the tract Kolomiyshchina, which is located at a distance of half a kilometer from the village of Khalepye on the Dnieper, a whole settlement was discovered in 1938, consisting of 39 dwellings of the Trypillia type. They are located in two concentric circles. The diameter of the inner circle is 50-60 m, and the outer circle is 170 m. Some of these houses (8) are small, while the rest are medium and large sizes, multi-hearth; they could accommodate 20-30 people. The entire village had a population of over 500 people.

The presence of a large number of hearths in dwellings was associated with the division of the matriarchal clan into several paired families. “These families,” says L. G. Morgan, referring to similar principles of housing planning among the Iroquois, “built large houses, large enough to accommodate several families, and it can be considered that in all parts of America of the native period people did not live in separate families in individual houses, but in large, multi-family households.”

Appearance in the IV millennium BC. e. clay wall and floor made of baked clay in the dwelling, as well as pottery (Fig. 16) speaks of the homogeneous nature of these phenomena related to the Neolithic. In the process of laying the foundations of architecture, this period was marked by the appearance of not only more perfect than before, ground dwellings, but also a more perfect type of their decor - ornament.

At the beginning of the Neolithic, pottery was reduced mainly to the manufacture of vessels: large ones for storing supplies, medium ones for cooking food, and small ones for eating (Fig. 18). They were made by hand (without a potter's wheel), by laying clay bundles in layers on top of each other in a spiral. To apply the ornament, comb tiles were used - stamps, with the help of which a pattern was created from rows of lines and dimples. Later, ceramics appeared with a geometric curvilinear pattern and, finally, with a painted colored ornament applied with a brush.

The emergence and development of ornamental creativity was also facilitated by the weaving of various baskets and other products from thin, flexible branches or reeds. From here, for the first time, the penetration of ornamental motifs into the sphere of construction began.

The appearance of painted pottery is usually associated with the emergence of settlements, the most typical of the Eneolithic - a period of transition between the Stone Age and the Bronze Age. Such settlements in the 4th millennium BC become widespread everywhere and are characterized by the following four features, which simultaneously determine the essence of the Eneolithic era itself, that is, the period when copper and stone tools coexist; hoe agriculture begins to dominate other types of economy; the presence of a large number of female figurines, characteristic of the existence of the maternal clan, is noted; large, usually adobe residential buildings are becoming widespread.

There were very few copper tools, mostly axes, largely repeating their stone prototype. According to all its data, the copper ax could not withstand the bronze ax, which soon replaced it; however, the same fate befell many other tools associated with the Eneolithic era.

Among the early stone dwellings of the Neolithic era in Europe are also round, oval and rectangular houses in the Aegean basin.

The most ancient round house was discovered in Orchomenus (Boeotia); its diameter reached 6 m. The lower part of its walls (1 m thick) was built of small stone on clay mortar, the upper part - of raw brick. It was probably covered with a dome. In the houses of the late period, one of the walls was straight, due to which an elongated semi-oval was formed in the plan. Rectangular houses in Orchomenus appeared only together with tools made of bronze (Fig. 19). Similar houses are found in the Neolithic period (a house in Seruzzi, Italy; Fig. 20) and later - in Ancient Greece on about. Argos (Fig. 21).

The Bronze Age covers the III and II millennium BC. e., but it did not immediately spread throughout the globe. And when in the whole Aegean world, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Syria, China and India, the flourishing of the slave-owning society had already begun, in most European and Asian countries the primitive communal system was still preserved.

The climate change, which began in the Late Neolithic and became increasingly dry, led to the fact that forests gave way to steppes over a significant area. Thanks to this, the development of cattle breeding accelerated and agriculture spread to areas previously occupied by the few communities of hunters and fishermen.

With the growth of cattle breeding, the nature of agriculture also changed significantly, which from hoeing became arable, plow, based on the use of livestock as draft power.

By the end of the Bronze Age, a patriarchal-tribal system had developed in Europe. A developed cult of ancestors and complex rituals arose, which led to the creation of religious structures such as a mound, a cromlech, and a number of megalithic structures.

Here one cannot fail to mention other continents, which also made their significant contribution to the overall development of both religious buildings and arts, especially plastic ones, directly related to architecture.
Let us dwell in this connection on Ancient Africa.

Foreign science paid little attention to the achievements material culture"dark continent", but thanks to the later objective studies of its own figures, it was established that, just like in the territory of the future France and England, the most ancient inhabitants of South Africa used the same hand axes. The stone grinding technique also made great progress here, which predetermined a significant leap in construction.

Evidence of the relatively high culture of South Africa can serve, in particular, the fact that mummification (as established by the famous Italian scientist Fabrizio Mori) was practiced much earlier than in ancient period development of culture in the Nile Valley.

Returning to the Bronze Age, we note that the beginning of this era in Central Europe was characterized by two types of dwellings that made up small settlements: dug in the loess, round in plan, beehive-shaped in section, and ground rectangular houses with wattle walls coated with clay.

In Brittany during this period, there were also two types of dwellings: dug out in the ground, covered with conical roofs, and ground round with walls made of stone. Near the settlement, which consisted of such houses, a fence was arranged to drive cattle. The inhabitants of such a village were engaged in cattle breeding and growing cereals.

In what is now southeastern Spain, dwellings sometimes had two floors, and settlements were surrounded by high stone walls.

Piled buildings became widespread in the Bronze Age, the Italian variety of which was the so-called terramaras - wooden log cabins filled with stones and clay, on which platforms were arranged, which served as the basis for usually round huts (Fig. 22).

Piled buildings were also built in other places: in Oceania, near the northern Dayaks on about. Borneo, in Switzerland, etc. The large settlement of Morsch on stilts was established in the Bronze Age on Lake Geneva. It was up to 360 m long and 30 to 45 m wide.

Significantly changed by this time their character and Tripolye settlements. In connection with the development of cattle breeding, large large-family ground buildings disappeared, they were replaced by small adobe houses and semi-dugouts.

In the II millennium BC. e. there is almost no painted pottery typical of the earlier Trypillia culture. It becomes monochromatic. Ceramics with a corded ornament, with an imprint of a rope on the surface of the product, is widespread. Whorls are increasingly found during excavations, which indicates the development of spinning and weaving. Occasionally there are iron products.

At the very end of the Eneolithic and in the Bronze Age, fortified settlements appeared, which later, at the beginning of the Iron Age, became more widespread, as wars became a constant phenomenon.

An example of this kind of Iron Age settlements is ancient settlement Tushemlya in the Smolensk region, the excavations of which began in 1955 (Fig. 23). The site of this settlement has a shape close to an oval. Its length is 35 m, width (in the middle part) is 32 m. It occupies a cape on the root bank of the Tushemlya River, the left tributary of the Sozha. From the side of the coast, this site was protected by five earthen ramparts and ditches. The height of the largest rampart above the site of the settlement was 3 m.

The general nature of residential buildings, their fences and design scheme, as well as the place of the cult site are visible in the Bereznyaki settlement (Fig. 24).

Along with settlements such as Tushemlya, which served as a place of temporary shelter from the enemy, there were also the so-called Pilyakalnis (Latvian and Lithuanian SSR) - small settlements that were intended for permanent habitation. special attention log structures of this time deserve (the second half of the 2nd millennium BC and the beginning of the 1st millennium). This includes mounds, which we have already mentioned as memorial structures. As usual, in the history of the development of memorial structures, residential buildings served as their prototype, in this case, a log house.

The mounds were built in the following way.

First of all, a large rectangular hole was dug in the ground, then a log house with a wooden floor was built in it. In this log house, another log box was installed, which served as a burial chamber. The space between both chambers was sometimes filled with stones. Then they were covered with two rolls of logs and, covered with birch bark and bark, covered with earth, which formed a hill. A stone was thrown on top of this hill. So, in particular, the Pazyryk mound was built, located in the Pazyryk valley of the Altai mountains.

The wooden core of these structures is a log house. Like the Italian terramaras, they should be considered the first step towards the creation of a ground chopped log building, which owes its appearance to the metal ax, but has not yet been structurally brought to the technique of diverse modern cuts. Timber dwellings were also common among the Baltic, Finnish and Turkic tribes.

25. Menhirs: a - menhirs in Brittany; 6 - statue-menhir near Saint-Germain (Averon, France)
26. Dolmen near Maykop (USSR) and a group of dolmens near Salisbury (England)	27. Megalithic structures

In the Bronze Age, structures made of huge stones, which appeared as early as the Neolithic, reached their highest development, the so-called megaliths: menhirs, dolmens, alinemans, covered passages, cromlechs, etc. (Fig. 25, 26).

All types of these structures are usually associated with one or another cult of veneration of ancestors (menhir, dolmen), fire or sun (cromlech), totem (betil), etc.

Megalithic structures are very widespread almost everywhere - from Scandinavia to Algeria, from Portugal to China, Korea and India. A lot of them are found in France, Belgium, the USSR (especially in the North Caucasus), Sweden, England and Scotland, Greece, along the Mediterranean coast, Tunisia, Egypt and many other countries (Fig. 27).

The fact that this type of structure was almost ubiquitous indicates that they served as an expression of ideas that were common to all people of this era, regardless of their geographical location. Such an idea, it seems to us, could be the desire to materialize the consciousness of the significance of one's personality, to affirm its power and inviolability, to preserve the memory of it for posterity for centuries. It is no coincidence that these stones had a huge (especially for lifting equipment of that time) weight and size. If we keep in mind their historical relationship with later structures that have architectural features, then a menhir is a tombstone or monument similar in idea to a memorial votive column, a dolmen is a crypt, a simple tomb, or a sarcophagus, and a cromlech in Stonehenge is already a temple, although very primitive (Fig. 28).

In the latter type, we have reason to see a structure in which the technical problem not only found a certain type of solution, but also received a certain aesthetic embodiment, indicating that the builders mastered a sense of space, rhythm, proportions, scale and form. Other megaliths do not possess such qualities, since all of them, according to the indicated features and their external appearance, are closer to the amorphous creations of nature than to the work of human hands.

But the cromlech in Stonehenge is not yet an established architectural structure, although it already has some of its features that we have indicated. He is too massive, his verticals are heavy in relation to the horizontals. The technicality of the image here prevails over its artistry, as in all, without exception, other structures that preceded the creation of the cromlech: dugouts, semi-dugouts, huts, ground adobe and other structures that had only a purely utilitarian purpose. The art form arises when the utilitarian form reaches a certain perfection. So it was at the final stage of the Bronze Age, and in the Early Iron Age, when handicrafts and the art industry began to emerge especially actively. Strings of stones speak of more elementary forms of development of spatial representations preceding the cromlech (Fig. 29).

The improvement of building and technical forms could not but be affected by the improvement of the tools themselves, which at that particular time became more durable, sharper, and more convenient, due to which the material processed by them also became less rough, more beautiful. This, of course, was facilitated by the wider specialization of tools, which allowed for finer processing of both the main building materials - wood and stone, and metal (Fig. 30).

Improved iron tools, advanced metalworking, turning into an artistic craft, raising the general level of material, and at the same time spiritual production, as F. Engels pointed out [ F. Engels. The origin of the family, private property and the state. M., Gospolitizdat, 1945, pp. 33-34.], that's what made civilization possible. The achievements of this primitive civilization allowed the ancient builder to rise to a higher level in achieving the artistic quality of his buildings (Fig. 31-32).

So, from the solution of a purely technical (constructive-building) problem and the subsequent aesthetic understanding of building structures and their details, as well as giving the structure created with their help a certain ideological content, artistic and technical construction arose, capable of satisfying not only utilitarian, but also spiritual needs of people, - architecture.

A clear example confirming the above can be the Greek megaron, which, if we consider it at the stage of development related to the III millennium BC, was an elementary technical facility, designed for shelter from rain and wind, heat, cold, etc., i.e. for housing. There were rough walls, a valley, a doorway, and instead of a window there was a light-smoke opening above the simplest type of hearth.

But centuries passed, and this interior space of the Greco-Italian house (which once had a sooty ceiling and walls) began to look not only bright, clean, but also beautiful, since instead of the rough four pillars that stood at the corners of the light-smoke opening, an elegant colonnade appeared , which formed the architectural core of the atrium. Instead of a hearth, an artistically designed altar appeared.

Everything here was made in pleasing to the eye forms, scales, proportions, color, texture, etc., that is, it was aesthetically ennobled, and began to represent, along with the solution of a certain technical problem, its artistic embodiment - an architectural work.

A more complete and comprehensive consideration of the paths taken by construction and the architecture born by it, having entered the second socio-economic formation - the slave-owning society, is the content of the subsequent chapters of this work.

Chapter "The Origin of Architecture" of the book " General history architecture. Volume I. Architecture ancient world". Author: V.Yu. Tsirkunov; edited by O.Kh. Khalpakhchna (responsible editors), E.D. Kvitnitskaya, V.V. Pavlova, A.M. Pribytkova. Moscow, Stroyizdat, 1970

Lecture 2

The beginning of construction activity dates back to the Paleolithic era and is associated with the first human experience in building a dwelling with the help of primitive stone tools.

Example: (dable or conical huts, dugouts).

The origin of architecture should be attributed to the late Paleolithic era, when construction from a purely technical activity solving utilitarian tasks gradually began to turn into a more complex activity aimed at satisfying the primitive spiritual needs of people.

Aesthetic comprehension of the simplest constructive systems and their elements is associated with the beginnings of tectonic thinking, and subsequently giving knowledge of a certain ideological-figurative-technical construction, i.e. architecture in the full sense of the word.

During the Neolithic period, more advanced stone tools appeared, and the material possibilities of man increased significantly.

During this period, a dwelling made of wood took the form of a relatively large rectangular building, the walls of which were a wattle fence on log posts. A similar dwelling was found on the territory of the Dnieper region (II-III thousand years BC). (see sketch 1).

Sketch 1.

Large houses S=150m 2

small houses

This settlement is one of the earliest examples of a regular organization of a residential complex, taking into account the characteristics of community life and defensive functions.

The most developed type of buildings of the Neolithic period are buildings based on wooden piles, which were usually erected over rivers and lakes in wetlands. The spread of this type of settlements is explained by defensive considerations, as well as for convenient fishing in reservoirs with fish.

Piled buildings were found on the river. Modlon in Vologda region(II millennium BC). A number of houses are placed on a log deck, supported by piles by means of girders. The walls were erected from vertically placed poles intertwined with rods. The middle poles were higher than the others and had a fork at the ends, on which the ridge run of a sloping gable roof was strengthened. The roof was made of birch bark, pressed down with stones, the floor was covered with clay. (See Sketch 2.)

(Cross section of the building) ridge run

birch bark stones poles twigs clay floor log flooring beam purlin wooden piles

In the Bronze Age, metal tools made it possible to dramatically increase labor productivity. By this time, megalithic structures, which originated in the late Neolithic era, were widely used, the purpose of which was mainly associated with religion, funeral rites and memorable events.

There are three main types of metal structures: menhirs, dolmens, cromlechs. (See Sketch 3).

Menhirs- vertically placed stones, sometimes reaching very large sizes. They sometimes reach 20m in height and 300t in weight. These are tombstones or monuments erected alone or in groups. Sometimes menhirs are found in combination with dolmens- structures of several vertical stones supporting a horizontal stone slab.

Dolmens most often served as burial chambers and at the same time tombstones. The dolmens were originally small in size - about 2 m long and about 1.5 m high, but in the next they reached such sizes that sometimes they arranged an approach to them in the form of a stone gallery.

The most complex type of megalithic structures - cromlech. Cromlech in Stonehenge (England) - a circle with a diameter of 30 m of vertically placed stones, covered with horizontal slabs. Inside there are 2 rings of small stones, and between them there are high blocks with slabs placed in pairs, organizing the center of the space. A clear compositional idea with symmetry, rhythm and coherence of elements has already appeared here.

Log buildings deserve special attention, in particular - barrows- a common type of memorial structures. During the construction of the barrow, first a powerful frame with a wooden floor was built in the pit. Inside the log house, a burial chamber was arranged, which was interrupted by a run-up of logs covered with birch bark. Backfilling with earth formed a mound, often of considerable height. An example is the Pazyryk log mound in the Altai Mountains.

At the later stages of the development of the primitive communal system, a new type of architectural structures- wooden and stone fortresses. In areas poor in stone, but abundant in forests, settlements (hillforts) were spread, fortified with log palisades, earthen oars and ditches. Initially, the fortresses had one defensive wall, later a second wall could be erected inside the fortress to protect the clan nobility and the leader of the community.

With the division of labor and the separation of craft from agriculture, the contradictions of tribal society become more acute. With the advent of private property, property differences become more and more significant. The importance of slave labor is growing. All this leads to the disintegration of the tribal system, the emergence of an early class society, and the appearance of the first slave-owning states.

The word "architecture" in Greek means "building". This is one of the oldest human activities. The surviving remains of human settlements indicate the existence of various ways of life of people in different areas the globe and at different stages of human development.

The oldest of the monumental structures that have come down to us belong to stone age and are called megalithic. The name comes from the Greek words "megas" - large and "lithos" - a stone, that is, structures made of large stones. They are found in various countries of Europe, North Africa, Asia Minor, India, Japan and other parts of the world. Such buildings are called menhirs, dolmens, and cromlechs.

Isn't it surprising that everything, it seems, the limitless variety of forms of world architecture, including its most modern achievements, only reproduces in different ways these eternal beginnings, laid down by the still nameless architects of the Stone Age.

Metal structures acted as public buildings, but since ancient times man has needed housing. It is unlikely that anyone is able to find out where and when a person built his first house. In the Neolithic, in some places, dwellings were built from wood, reeds, twigs and clay. In others, they erect buildings on piles and the so-called communal houses. The settlements found in Northern Italy(approximately 1800 BC). On the pillars arranged around the area, which housed the huts. A wooden fence was erected around the village, and a moat was dug, filled with water. As a result of research in Anatolia (Turkey), an ancient fortified settlement dating back to the 6th millennium BC was discovered.

But, perhaps, the most ancient human dwelling is described in the book by V. Glazychev “The Origin of Architecture”. The house reconstructed by scientists was built 11 thousand years ago in the Wadi en-Natuf valley (upper Jordan River) and looked like this: a round recess in a stone base, flexible poles inserted into pre-hollowed holes and converging at the top. Then the poles were intertwined with thinner rods and smeared with clay. In the middle of the base of this round house is the place of the hearth, above it is a hole. There are still long millennia ahead, discoveries and disappointments, greatness Egyptian pyramids and perfection the Athenian Acropolis, the monumentality of Rome and the frantic impulse of the Gothic, but there, in the distant Wadi-en-Natuf, a decisive step has already been taken, the great craft of architecture is already keeping track of time. A person finds shelter over his head, protection from bad weather and danger, warmth and coolness not under a tree or in a cave, but in a specially built permanent house.

The most important moment of the emerging agricultural civilization was the birth of a completely new kind of art, impossible and unknown to hunters and gatherers. It's about architecture. Hiding in a accidentally discovered cave is one thing, but building artificial structures of arbitrary sizes and shapes from clay, wood or stone, placing them in specially selected places, is another matter entirely.

Architecture is understood as the art of designing and constructing buildings in accordance with predetermined goals and a project that meets the technical capabilities and aesthetic criteria of the local community (town, city, country). As an art form, architecture already enters the sphere of spiritual culture, aesthetically forms the environment of a person, expresses social ideas in artistic images.

Organize, rebuild and master environment by their own standards, farmers started in two directions at once - with the creation of architecture of small and large forms. Small forms went to private purposes, primarily residential and outbuildings, and large ones - to the construction of public institutions, mainly religious temples and royal palaces. This should also include major engineering projects, such as the large irrigation systems of ancient Egypt.

The earliest form of human habitation was camping - temporary unfortified camps of primitive hunters and gatherers. The camps of Stone Age hunters were replaced by settlements (settlements) of farmers, which could take the form of a fortress (structures made of huge roughly hewn stones) or settlements (a group of residential buildings and outbuildings surrounded by an earthen rampart or a wooden fence). Later, the fortress and the settlement, as two different types of settlements, are combined and turned into fortified fortress cities (there were especially many of them in the Middle Ages).

Somewhat later - during the period of ancient Eastern civilizations - the architectural organization of the space of settlements, the creation of cities and towns, the regulation of settlement systems stood out in a special area - urban planning.

The most famous stone historical and archaeological monuments created by man include the pyramids of Giza, Stonehenge, dolmens, idols of Easter Island and stone balls of Costa Rica.
Today I want to bring to your attention a selection of not so famous, but no less interesting stone historical and archaeological structures of antiquity.

Valley of pitchers in Laos

The Valley of Pitchers is a group of unique sites that contain unusual historical and archaeological monuments - huge stone jugs. These mysterious objects are located in the province of Xiangkhouang, in Laos. Thousands of gigantic stone vessels are scattered among the dense tropical flora. The size of the jars ranges from 0.5 to 3 meters, and the weight of the largest reaches 6,000 kg. Most giant stone pots are cylindrical, but oval and rectangular jugs are also found. Round discs were found next to unusual vessels, which were supposedly used as lids for them. These pots were made from granite, sandstone, rock and calcined coral. Scientists suggest that the age of stone bowls is 1500 - 2000 years.

The territory of the valley includes more than 60 sites on which groups of gigantic vessels are located. All sites are stretched along one line, which may be evidence that there used to be an ancient trade route here, which was served by platforms with jugs. The city of Phonsavan is concentrated the largest number jugs, this place is called the “First platform”, on which there are about 250 vessels of various sizes.

There are a huge number of theories and assumptions regarding who and for what purposes such peculiar vessels were created. According to scientists, these jugs were used by an ancient people living in southeast Asia, whose culture and customs are still unknown. Historians and anthropologists suggest that the huge jars could have been funerary urns and were used in funeral rituals. There is a version that food was stored in them, another version says that rainwater was collected in the vessels, which was used by trade caravans. Lao legends say that these gigantic jugs were used as ordinary dishes by the giants who lived here in ancient times. Well, the version of local residents says that rice wine was made and stored in megalith jars. No matter how many versions and theories are put forward, the Valley of Pitchers undoubtedly remains an unsolved mystery.

National Historical and Archaeological Reserve "Stone Grave"

Historical and archaeological reserve "Stone Grave", which is located near the city of Melitopol on the banks of the Molochnaya River and is a world monument of ancient culture in Ukraine. These are the remains of the sandstone of the Sarmatian Sea, due to natural transformations, a unique stone monolith gradually formed on this place, in which caves and grottoes were formed for thousands of years, which ancient people used for religious purposes. Rock paintings and stone tablets with ancient inscriptions, mysterious signs and images dating back to the 22nd - 16th millennium BC have survived to this day.

The stone grave is located 2 km from the village of Mirnoye, Melitopol district, Zaporozhye region, and is a heap of stones with an area of ​​about 30,000 square meters. meters, up to 12 meters high. The heap in shape resembles a barrow (Ukrainian grave), hence its name comes from. The stone grave at first was probably a sandstone shoal of the Sarmatian Sea, the only sandstone outcrop in the entire Azov-Black Sea basin, which makes it a unique geological formation.

Neither in the Stone Grave itself, nor in the immediate vicinity of it, human settlements have been found that can be associated with the monument. Based on this, the researchers conclude that the stone grave was used exclusively for religious purposes, as a sanctuary

Arkaim

Arkaim is a fortified settlement of the Middle Bronze Age at the turn of III-II millennium BC. e., related to the so-called. "Land of Cities". It is located on an elevated cape formed by the confluence of the Bolshaya Karaganka and Utyaganka rivers, 8 km north of the village of Amursky, Bredinsky district, and 2 km southeast of the village of Aleksandrovsky, Kizilsky district, Chelyabinsk region. The settlement and the territory adjacent to it with a whole complex of archeological monuments of different times is a natural-landscape and historical-archaeological reserve - a branch of the Ilmensky state reserve named after V. I. Lenin Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The monument is uniquely preserved defensive structures, the presence of synchronous burial grounds and the integrity of the historical landscape.

In the summer of 1987, archaeologists from the Chelyabinsk State University carried out routine surveys of archaeological sites in the Bolshekaraganskaya Valley, in the southwest of the Chelyabinsk Region. The valley was supposed to be flooded in order to arrange an extensive reservoir there for neighboring state farms. The builders were in a hurry, and archaeologists hastily compiled a map of ancient monuments for posterity, never to return here again. But the attention of the researchers was attracted by the ramparts, which, as it turned out, surrounded the settlement of an unusual type - they had not been found before in the steppe zone. During the study, it turned out that the monument was a village created according to a pre-thought-out plan, with a clear urban planning idea, complex architecture and fortification.
Over the next few years, 20 more such settlements were discovered, which made it possible to talk about the discovery of an interesting ancient culture, which received the conditional name “Country of Cities”.

In science, this archaeological culture is called Arkaim-Sintashta. The significance of the discovery of Arkaim and other fortified settlements of this type is indisputable, as it gave completely new data on the migration routes of the Indo-Europeans and made it possible to prove that a fairly highly developed culture existed in the South Ural steppes 4 thousand years ago. Arkaim people were engaged in metallurgy and metalworking, weaving, and pottery. The basis of their economy was cattle breeding.
The fortified settlements of the Arkaim-Sintashta culture date back to the turn of the 3rd-2nd millennium BC. They are five or six centuries older than Homeric Troy, contemporaries of the first dynasty of Babylon, the pharaohs of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt and the Cretan-Mycenaean culture of the Mediterranean. The time of their existence corresponds to the last centuries famous civilization India - Mahenjo-Daro and Harappa.

Stone monuments in the Ulytau mountains

Archaeologists have discovered groups of stone sculptures and rock paintings with images of sabers, daggers, dishes and much more.
Particularly unique are stone statues - balbals, which were placed in front of the stone statues of batyrs, commanders, a string of balbals is placed. Sometimes their number reaches 200.

Along with male statues, female ones were also installed. Depending on the age of the person, they are called “stone girl”, “stone woman”, “stone old woman”. That is why there is another, Slavic name for balbals - stone women.

Archaeological site of Gunung Padang

The sacred mountain of Gunung Padang is located in the Bandung region, West Java. The “Mountain of Light” (or “Mountain of Enlightenment”) is a mountain on the top and slope of which a main pyramid on the top.

The Dutch were the first to notice it in 1914. In their report, the Colonial Archaeological Survey referred to it as Mount Gunung Padang (Mount of Enlightenment), on top of which locals rise for meditation. For the second time, she flashed in 1949, after which she disappeared for exactly 30 years. Only in 1979 scientists - geographers and geologists - climbed to its top.
At the top of the mountain, they found hundreds of blocks of stone of the correct form, arranged in a certain order.

In addition to the obvious division of Mount Padang into five levels, megaliths scattered over the entire height of the mountain, over an area of ​​900 square meters, andesite columns, etc., studies have shown the presence of a hollow chamber. The size of the chamber is 10 m in width, height and length.
It is widely believed that it is located in the "heart of the Mountain".
The distance to the cavity is 25 meters from the turn. Soil samples taken by drilling indicate the age of the structure in the range from 20,000 to 22,000 BC.

Ancient stones of Great Britain

Men-En-Tol, Cornwall - mysterious stone, which, it would seem, has always been standing in the swamps of Penwit.

Callanish, located on the Isle of Lewis in the Greater Hebrides, is currently the largest monument of the megalithic culture of the British Isles. The reconstructed form of the "Callanish stones" was established presumably during the Neolithic period, approximately between 2.9 and 2.6 thousand years BC. Experts note that earlier (until 3000 a sanctuary was located here).

Callanish is formed by thirteen vertically standing monuments or groups of stones, which form circles up to thirteen meters in diameter. Average Height stones is 4 meters, but can vary between 1-5 meters. The stones are cut from local gneiss. In terms of popularity, Callanish stones can compete with Stonehenge.

Avebury, Wittshire. Local farmers habitually herd sheep among the peers of Stonehenge, which date back to 2500 BC.

Brodgar Circle, Stromness, Orkney - British response to the pyramids of Egypt. The stone period dates back to 3000 BC. Only 27 out of 60 statues remain.

Rollite Stones, Oxfordshire.

Bryn Selley, Anglesey, Wales. Wales is rich in ancient placers of stones, but the most famous pagan building is, of course, Bryn Seli (“The Mound of the Dark Room”). On the island of Anglesey, he appeared in the Neolithic period (4000 years ago).

Arbor Low, Middleton upon Yolgreave, Derbyshire. 50 stones stand silently on Arbor Low, a short drive from Bakewell.

Castlerigg, Keswick, Lake District

Nine Stones, Dartmoor.

Megaliths of the Urals

Vera Island on Lake Turgoyak.
Megaliths of Vera Island - a complex of archaeological monuments (megaliths - a chamber tomb, dolmens and menhirs) on the island of Lake Turgoyak (near Miass) in the Chelyabinsk region. The island is located near West Bank lakes and, at low water levels, is connected to the shore by an isthmus, turning into a peninsula.
The megaliths were presumably built about 6,000 years ago, in the 4th millennium BC. uh

Cult site Vera Island.

The largest building on the island is megalith No. 1 - a stone structure 19 × 6 m in size, cut into the rocky ground and covered with massive stone slabs. The walls of the structure are made by dry laying of massive stone blocks. The megalith consists of three chambers and corridors connecting them. Rectangular pits carved into the rock were found in two chambers of the megalith. The connection of the building with the main astronomical directions was fixed. The building is preliminarily interpreted as a temple complex.

An architectural complex at the bottom of China's Fuxian Lake

The pyramid was found at the bottom of the Chinese lake Fuxian (southwestern province of Yunnan).
Its height is 19 m, the length of the side of the base is 90 m. The structure is built of stone slabs and has a stepped structure. At the bottom of the lake there are about a dozen more similar objects and about 30 structures of other types. Total area architectural complex is about 2.5 sq. km. Archaeologists raised an earthenware vessel from the bottom of the lake, which, according to experts, was made during the Eastern Han Dynasty, which ruled in 25-220 AD, Xinhua reports.