ABSTRACT
The first dwellings were almost certainly one-room structures. Even today, the simplest and quickest way of providing physical protection from the elements or from predators is still to enclose ourselves within a single volume of something – be it in the form of a ‘ready-made’ structure like a cave, or a purpose-built one made of branches and leaves, involving ‘only a minute modification of natural surroundings’. 1 These are generally regarded as the first shelters mankind fashioned for himself. Protection from predators and shelter from the elements provided pressing reasons to construct or find a safe refuge, and it is to these timeless (and still available) solutions that we inevitably turn when we are in need of urgent and basic protection. Plan of Scara Brae settlement, Orkney - redrawn from <italic>Lines on the Landscape Circles from the Sky</italic> by Trevor Garnham (Tempus Publishing Ltd.), p. 61 https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203107140/105f0533-30df-4c7d-b373-aa9ced690544/content/fig00087_B.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> Settlement of one-room structures forming traditional rural settlement, northern Cameroon, 1984 https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203107140/105f0533-30df-4c7d-b373-aa9ced690544/content/fig00088_C.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>
