Where did people live before they started to make homes/housing?

Question

I'm mainly wondering about how people in Indonesia lived.

Answer 1

Early man tended to live in the same environment as animals, huddling under trees or in dugout or in a cave for warmth.  As tool making and other technologies grew, people began making mobile shelters (tents, hogans and teepees) which they used for at least part of the year.  Sometimes they built more permanent structures out of logs or rock and came back year after year on their migratory path.  

The answer above said that almost no people lived in caves, and he's completely wrong.  Cave sites in North America, Spain, France, Britain and Eastern Europe have yielded some of the most important finds regarding our earliest history, and have clearly shown generations on top of generations of people living in caves, at least part of the year.  The very term Neanderthal, after all, comes from a cave complex in France where cave paintings and the debris pf tool making and food preparation show long inhabitation.

However, it's important to remember that, except in a few temperate locations close to the seas, most humans were nomandic until the agricultural revelution began.  After then, many people began settling down and had to find a way to protect themselves from the environment in one place, year round.  They had greater stability and could sometimes produce a food surplus, and so were able to start creating what you would refer to as permanent housing.  Those who continued to be nomadic, mostly continued to lead a cave / tend / temporary wood or grass structure sort of life.  They mostly followed the heards, and over time, began tending the heards, but remained largely nomadic.

Answer 2

CAVES, or shelters made from sticks branches covered in leaves, or animal skins.  

Answer 3

The easiest is caves or depressions in the rock faces or in the crevices.        You can see proof of those spots being inhabited by occasionally seeing simple paintings on the walls or soot from ancient fires that burned below.  Found in North America, in France, in China, in Australia.  That is the most simplest and the one you would look for if you were lost in the woods, the next being near under or beside a fallen log or two.     Especially if you don't have any tools.    So begins the start of the wood and rock buildings which continue on to present day.

Answer 4

Good question. That depends on which people you talk about; there is a big difference between early Europeans and Australian Aboriginies! Not only are different cultures... well, different, they did not all start building houses at the same time.

However, generally speaking, many people were nomads first, and they would travel around, living off the land as they moved (that includes hunting), and probably constructing temporary shelters as they went. It was with the advent of agriculture people began to settle down and construct more permanent housing.

Answer 5

Imagine yourself many miles from what you think of as civilization and embellish on the thought by having a mate and some children to provide for. Now there are no apartments or empty ranch style homes in sight and it looks like a storm is coming! The first time this happens you all scramble to find a big tree or overhanging rock to get under and out of the weather. I think that this would get you thinking about putting together something, made out of trees most likely, to be able to shelter in to sleep, eat and get out of the weather, if not for you, then certainly for your children. So at first, it was probably tree branches, woven grass/reeds moving on to animal skins and later piling stone upon stone. Each generation improving on what mom and dad had called home.  

Answer 6

i hope to god no one says caves. (the term "caveman" is technically false since very, very few early man actually lived in caves)

since the very beginning, man may not have even had any sort of house. like animals. sleeping under a tree, and roaming around nomadically for food.  over time primitive structures like lean-to shelters or tee-pee like structures would have been used (using tree branches). OR depending on where the person lived, their home would be built out of stone and/or mud. (or a mix of mud, rock and tree limbs).  and as knowledge expanded, homes got more complicated.  though, the idea of a home has changed little. the only things that have changed really are the building material.

Answer 7

Well, you know, in the woods. Where else would they live if they didn't have homes? J/K :)

As several have pointed out, before agriculture most people were on the move most of the time, so they didn't really have homes and would shelter wherever they could. Gotta remember, people were a lot tougher back then, so as long as they could get out of the wind they could shelter for the night almost anywhere. Like, you know, the other animals. And yes, caves were used extensively, and caves near permanent hunter/gatherer food sources like a good productive coastline were probably the first real "homes" humans ever had.

Archaeological evidence of temporary brush shelters and hide tents and such wouldn't survive, so to a large extent the answer to your question is still unknown. Interesting question.