by Mildred Boyd
Because
human beings are poorly designed creatures, without fur or feathers, claws
or fangs, they have always required protection from the elements, from
wild animals and, unfortunately, from others of their own kind. Once the
demand of increasing population exceeded the available supply of natural
refuges like caves, they were forced to become architects and engineers.
Those first efforts were necessarily
primitive; temporary dugouts or lean-tos or leafy arbors. Nomadic hunter/gatherers
used any handy branches, grasses or reeds but soon devised clever animal-hide
shelters that could be easily carried wherever they traveled.
Not until increased skills in group
hunting, agriculture and animal husbandry insured a relatively steady
food supply did permanent homes became feasible. Family settlements became
clan villages that developed into urban centers and, finally, into cities
requiring public buildings, markets, palaces and temples. Lacking either
draft animals or wheeled vehicles to transport stone and ignorant of the
art of brick making, they built mainly of perishable local materials that
have long since returned to the earth from which they came. Our earliest
evidence of such settlements comes from the grave offerings of Early Pre
Classic sites. At Tlatilco, on the Altiplano, over 300 burials have yielded
fine pottery figurines from as early as 1200 DC which, despite the distance
involved, show definite Olmec influence.
More...... |