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sod, or peat, known by names such as fale and turf have been used for centuries.
Sod blocks can be cut on an angle to key in together and form a supporting
structure. This is an early form of earth sheltered construction. Layers of stones and
turf were formed into domes and beehives, like the sketch shown here. Beehive
houses are also found in Scotland; the lumps of fale placed between layers of
stone, the whole mass weighting itself together to make a snug shelter. A stone or
wood lintel was built in over the entry, and shrubbery pulled into the doorway to
keep animals, and drafts, out.
Clay and Bool walling. This is a very old Scottish method of building using
rounded river stones the bool mortared in a bed of clay. A formwork of boards
was later used help shape straighter walls.
Early Wattle and Daub, and Cob
Dwellers in the Eastern areas of Britain learned to lash small tree poles together to
make a conical hut, and surrounded the feet of the poles with stones to brace them.
The stone footings would evolve to a low, double walled ring of stones, with earth,
and straw-laced dung, packed into the middle, creating the first crude cob
material. Eventually, stone facings were eliminated when it was seen the cob wall
stood well on its own.
The Celts transferred their skill in cloth and basket weaving to wattle and daub
construction for shelters. Plastering the wattlework with local river clay helped to
weatherproof these shelters.
When the Romans abandoned the British Isles around 400 AD, the Angles,
Saxons, Norse, Jutes and other tribes invaded, bringing many new forms of earth
and wood construction. One method for upper wall formation was nogging a
placement of small stones, between vertically spaced sticks, then plastered over
with clay. This was the forerunner of lath and plaster, a system of horizontal
wooden slats that serve to key, or hold, the wall plaster.
Excavations at Koln-Lindenthal, in Germany, indicate an almost playful sculpting
of earth to form single, and family sized, shelters from 4,000 BC to 1,500 BC. The
floors of these footprint shaped dwellings were dug about 30 deep to create
seating nooks, couches, and shallow beds. Wattle panels were attached to posts,
and covered over with thatch or shrubbery to create a roof. Filling a sleeping pit
with fresh straw, laid over with animal skins, probably made for warm and
comfortable rest. The earth helped maintain the temperature and the wattlework
shielded them from cold winds and rain.
European peoples in the 4th century AD assembled rough wood planks and piled a
core of earth between the boards, letting it dry, and removing the boards to build
higher walls an early form of rammed earth. This was considered poor mans
stonework, and was widely used for hundreds of years. The earthen walls could
withstand the driving rains and rising damp only if it sat on a rubble stone
foundation and had a wide overhang roof. This is the boots and cap method of
protecting earthen walls which is still practiced by builders today.
The sophisticated earth building techniques found in the Middle East did not
develop in the British Isles. However, during the religious wars of 1100s Crusaders
were exposed to intricate adobe and rammed earth building designs in Eastern
lands, and later translated those ideas into towers and keeps made of stone, not
earth. The castle building that resulted may be a direct transfer of ideas from East to
West.
The earliest dwellings are located on the upper Euphrates river, in a place called
Tell Mureybit, occupied about 10,000 years ago. The local peoples built round
houses, hand sculpted, using red clay. Seven thousand years later these tribes
would form the Sumerian civilization, the first great culture on earth, and build the
pyramids.
In Middle Eastern lands, where wood and stone are scarce, or non-existent, the
inhabitants developed the clay material they had to an artform in building. An
ancient method of clay use was to coat a woven basket, and roast it over a fire to
harden the clay. When the basket reed burned up the clay pot remained. The use of
clay evolved from pots for food and oil, to a large earthen jars to bury the dead,
then to huge, house-sized granaries.
Small shrines in Afghanistan, called Ziarats, are sculpted of earth. The walls host
phallic shaped pillars, and the domed center room is sculpted like a breast with a
nipple of earth on top. There are thousands of these small health hostels
providing a cool resting place for travelers today.
Early Chinese builders prepared a foundation of rubble stones on which to build
earthen walls. They used a formwork of bamboo, or rough timbers, and dirt was
poured into the forms, and pounded with mallets, creating constant din for weeks
as walls grew higher. Around 400 BC most dwellings were roofed with thatch,
which the great Confucius considered the only proper material a virtuous builder
would use! And, by 1100 AD, the ruling Song government provided an exhaustive
set of building codes which prescribed usage for all materials from rammed earth to
ridgepoles. The standardized code allowed builders all over China to follow a
modular construction plan for any type of structure, public or private, and even
promoted use of prefabricated parts.
On the continent of Australia cob, mud, and rammed earth houses were built by the
thousands, mostly in the 1800s. A famous two story cob structure is Bears
Castle in Victoria, with four sturdy towers and a thatched roof.
Charmaine Taylor lives in a small, but sturdy cottage of Redwood, built in 1949, in
Humboldt County CA where she writes about, and experiments with natural
building materials. The text for this article was excerpted from her booklet entitled
Ancient Earth Dwellings
See books online at www.dirtcheapbuilder.com or email
books@dirtcheapbuilder.com
Taylor Publishing PO Box 375 Cutten CA 95534 tel: 707-441-1632
www.dirtcheapbuilder.com