Comments on: Look With Care at the Shape of the Square

By: joe o

joe o — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 04:31:42 +0000

Page 239 of “maps of time” states that the houses in permanent villages “usually” were square or rectangular and then mentions well-built round houses of northern china as being an exception.

By: Timothy Burke

Timothy Burke — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 12:56:18 +0000

Yeah, that's one of the key examples I'm thinking of, Preachy. The square v. round issue in Roman Britain strikes me as being a matter of culture, rather than a matter of agricuculture.

By: PreachyPreach

PreachyPreach — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 07:33:22 +0000

that sedentary and early agricultural villages everywhere can be identified in part by the fact that the houses they build are square Like, um, all the roundhouses in pre-Roman Britain. Oh.

By: Timothy Burke

Timothy Burke — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 20:37:45 +0000

Sure, but you can build more permanent round houses, and some cultures have. The association with timber is a good one. I just thought that Christian was suggesting that somehow settled cultures inevitably build square houses because they’re intrinsically better for settled or agricultural societies. But mrscoulter’s suggestion is probably right–he was more saying that a square house is evidence of a settled culture, whereas a round house could be either.

By: Jonathan Dresner

Jonathan Dresner — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 20:34:00 +0000

Just a guess, but I’d suspect that square houses are a function of building with heavy timber (or sod, come to think of it, works better in lines, too), whereas the kind of light poles and canvas constructions of migratory people are more efficiently and quickly built in the round.

By: Timothy Burke

Timothy Burke — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 15:45:59 +0000

Oh, maybe that is what he means. That seems pretty fair. I read it as, “If you’re agricultural or sedentary, you’ll build square houses”.

By: mrscoulter

mrscoulter — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 15:44:39 +0000

Hmmmm…

Could it be that what he means to say is that if you find square houses, you know it was agricultural? Not that all agricultural societies build square houses, but rather that nomadic societies DON’T…

So if you find square houses, you can be fairly confident that you’re dealing with an agricultural society. Round houses, on the other hand, could be either nomadic or agricultural.

No idea, of course, whether *this* claim is valid either.