Prehistoric Era

Stone Age

Humans during the Paleolithic era were hunter-gatherers. Their nomadic lifestyle led to temporary and short-lived buildings leading to a lack of surviving evidences of construction. However, it is believed that the earliest evidence of construction in the world is the 1.8 million year-old stone circle found at Olduvai Gorge representing the remains of a windbreak

By the mesolithic era, humans started to develop agriculture.[4] Hunter-gatherers built temporary shelter for hunters who would ambush their prey. Currently, the first evidence of man-made shelter dates back to 400,000 B.C. in Terra Amata, France which served as housing for hunters.

Neolithic Era

Further information: Neolithic architecture and Neolithic

By the Neolithic era, also known as the New Stone Age, humans developed agriculture and started to cultivate plants and domesticate animals. This change from the nomadic lifstyle meant that humans started building walls and forming cities. In addition to living in caves and using rock shelters, the first buildings were simple tents, like the Inuit's tupiq, and huts. Huts were built as protection from the elements like pit-houses, and as fortifications for safety like crannog.

Their shelters were built self-sufficiently by their inhabitants rather than by specialist builders, using locally available materials and traditional designs and methods. Because of this, what little can be said about very early construction is mostly conjecture and based on vernacular architecture or what is known about the way nomadic hunter-gatherers and herdsmen in remote areas build shelters today. For example, the first bridges made by humans were probably simple wooden logs placed across a stream and later on evolved into timber trackways.