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Early Architecture

Southern Africa

!Kung People

It is believed that the housing practices of the most traditional !Kung people groups have experienced relatively small changes since their development in antiquity. !Kung migrate, establishing temporary camps near sources of water during dry seasons about three to six times per year. Settlements might be abandoned when the rainy season begins or when a significant death or unfortunate event. While huts may be deconstructed to salvage materials, previous settlements are not deliberately re-inhabited.

These camps are founded at sites with shade, usually underneath large trees. Grass, saplings and anything else that would obstruct vision is removed, leaving a large circle of earth open for development. Up to fifteen huts are built in one camp, uniformly sized and organized around a communal fire with their openings toward the center. Outside the ring of huts is a space for domestic refuse like ash and food waste, then an area for butchering animals, then after around 200 meters of empty space, a zone for defecation which supports a large population of dung beetles. Settlements may support around fifty people.

Huts are placed close together, usually within arm's reach. While a hut may reach 6 feet (1.8 m) in diameter and 5 feet (1.5 m) tall at the apex, !Kung people use them for storage and accessory purposes, not for nightly habitation. Families arrange their huts in order of seniority, with the oldest family placed in the direction that their ancestors were said to come from and their married children on either side. Each hut has a small fire lit from the central fire in front of each entry.

These huts are most often made with saplings in the ground as a frame, then thatched in with grass. The top of thatched huts may be left open for ventilation during the dry season, later thatched in more thoroughly at the start of the rainy season. Another type of hut is made with sticks for a frame and cow dung as plaster. Ethnographers had assumed that this housing type was recently imported from neighboring cattle-raising tribes, but the !Kung may have built huts this way in the 19th century or earlier.

Horn of Africa

El Molo

Members of the El Molo tribe in front of their hut at Lake Turkana, North Kenya. Jens Klinzing.

Nigeria

Several societies in pre-colonial Nigeria built structures from earth and stone. In general, these structures were primarily defensive, repelling invaders from other tribes, but many settlements put spiritual elements into their construction. Several defensive structures are primarily constructed from earth, occasionally plastered for several reasons. Dump ramparts consist of an outer ditch and inner bank and can span from 1/2 meter to 20 meters across in the largest settlements such as Benin and Sungbo's Eredo. Coursed mud walls in the Guinea and Sudan savannas were laid in layers of mud. Each layer of mud would be held in place by wooden framing, allowed to dry, and built on top of. At the most significant settlement in Koso, these walls averaged 6 meters in height, tapering from 2 meters thick at the base to 1/2 meter thick at the top. Tubali walls in northern Nigeria have two components: sun-dried mud bricks held together with mud mortar. Walls in this style have a tendency to deteriorate in wetter climates.

Benin City in particular had sophisticated house and urban planning. Houses had several rooms and were usually roofed, enclosing private quarters, sacred spaces, and rooms for receiving guests. Usually, multiple houses would enclose a shared courtyard. When it rained, the house roofs would collect water into a space in the courtyard for later use. Houses would have public frontage along long, straight roads. The city had markets and the chief's palace in the center of the city, with dominant and subordinate roads leading outwards. HM Stanely, quoted in Asomani-Boateng, Raymond (2011-11), described the roads as "...fenced with tall [water cane] neatly set very close together in uniform rows..." possibly for privacy. These mud constructions were usually plastered with mud mixed with other materials. The defensive purpose of this was to create a smoother, unscalable surface to help repel attackers. However, some plaster has been found with blood, bone remains, gold dust, oil, and straw mixed in. Some of these materials were functional, adding strength, while others had spiritual meanings, possibly to defend against evil spirits.

Dry-laid stone structure in Sukur, in the Adamawa State.

More sophisticated construction methods include stone and brick constructions, with and without mortar, plaster, and accompanying defensive structures. Fired brick constructions were observed in settlements in northeast Nigeria, such as historic Kanuri buildings. Many of the bricks have since been removed for new constructions. Laterite block walls with clay mortar were found in northwest Nigeria, possibly inspired by Songhai constructions. Walls built from stone without mortar have been found where societies could obtain sufficient stone, most notably in Sukur. None of these constructions have been observed with additional plastering. The Sukur World Heritage Site is especially significant, with extensive terraces, walls, and infrastructure. Walls separate homes, animal pens, and granaries, while terraces often include spiritual items such as sacred trees or ceramic shrines. Early iron foundries were also present, usually placed close to their owners.

Broadly, three varieties of residental architecture can be identified in indigenous Nigerian architecture.

• Hausa architecture uses plastered adobe to create monolithic walls. Roofing is provided by shallow domes and vaults made from structural timber beams covered by laterite and earth. Homesteads are bounded by perimeter walls with both circular and linear interior divisions with one clearly defined entrance.
• Yoruba architecture uses cured earth walls to support roof timbers, over which leaf or woven grass roofing is applied. These walls are usually homogenous mud structures, though wattle-and-daub techniques can be found in certain locations. Space is divided into individual units which are then connected by proximity and walls into a compound with courtyards and private spaces. Multiple entrances and exits allow access to accessory facilities such as kitchens.
• Igbo architecture uses similar construction techniques and materials as Yoruba architecture, but varies significantly in spatial arrangement. No unified compound walls exist in these constructions. Instead, individual units are related to a central leader's hut, with significance attached to relative position and size.

These elements are believed to affect present-day residential house design, especially when designating spaces as public, semi-public, semi-private, or private.