Neolithic Housing and Wattle & Daub Fireplaces

This all started with Thursday's (Oct 22) Survivor where those poor people spent five days huddled in the rain in wet clothes, mostly shivering.

Of course, Fall has come to Michigan and the leaves are filling up my yard which is wet with rain. Perhaps that is why I could not stop thinking about the sorry shelters that these people were in.

 I thought they should build a fireplace with a little chimney. I did not know how to do that, but  the BBC  had a whole posting on how to build a wattle and daub fireplace.

The network of sticks is the wattle, and the mud is the daub. More advanced daubers put straw or hair in their mud. Even better was a little plaster or cement.

If these are outdoors, they usually did not have chimney's, but one could put in a chimney and put it closer to the house.


Wattle and daub has an long history extending back to Neolithic times.  This is a Native American wattle and daub home.


It is interesting to think about how primitive people live, but I know that it is a whole lot more comfortable in 21st Century America. I suppose I'll pick up that theme at Thanksgiving.

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