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The history of building

Even Stonehenge - the world-famous monument which epitomises pre-historic Britain - wasn't built in a day.

In fact it was designed, built, re-designed and re-built over a period of perhaps 2,000 years. So what we see now are just the fragmentary remains of the very last building phase.

There are no records as to why Stonehenge was built where it was, with the first monument (a roughly circular bank and ditch with causeways) beginning around 3050 BC.

The famous standing stones are most likely to have been constructed in the final stage of Stonehenge, initially of bluestones from Wales, with later additions of sarsen stones from the Marlborough Downs.

The first hunters, long before Stonehenge, would have slept in the open or in caves. But there is evidence of small human communities building wooden framed huts out of branches, leaves and grass to keep out the wind and rain 300,000 years ago.

Early houses were built of different things, in many different ways, all over the world.

For example:

IN RUSSIA: Hunters stretched mammoth skins over a frame of branches, bones and even tusks to make igloo-like homes.

IN WARM COASTAL COUNTRIES: People tied together reeds to make a hut, sometimes covering them with mud which was baked hard by the sun.

IN WESTERN EUROPE: Countries with plenty of trees saw houses built with extensive wooden frames, and twigs plastered with mud filled the gaps.

Eventually, the earliest builders made houses from bricks (dried in the sun) of mud and straw and the earliest stone houses were built in Europe complete with stone furniture at around the same time as Stonehenge, 4,000 years ago.

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