Prehistory.

Prehistory of interior design marks the beginning of the journey to our modern day interior design. It dates all the way back to 2,500,000 years ago, also known as the Paleolithic Period, and continues on through the Neolithic Period and ends in the Bronze Age in 1000 B.C.E. However; since the start of prehistory dates back over a million years ago and the technology was not advanced enough to create long-lasting objects, it is hard to know exactly how our ancestors chose to take advantage of the spaces they occupied.

Here are some things we do know about the three time periods within the prehistory of interior design:

Paleolithic (2,500,000-9000 B.C.E.): The Paleolithic period is the oldest known period and begins at two and a half million years ago simply because the oldest known artifact ever found dates back to that time. Aside from a few artifacts that have survived the years, the majority of the interior design knowledge is formed from the cave structures and the cave drawings and wall carvings from this time. We may also make the assumption that the people of this time chose to take advantage of the nature that surrounded them (i.e. a log or a stone could serve as a chair or a table) in which case there would be no specifically designated furniture. However, there are some specific cases where interior design was incorporated into the lives of these ancient people. Lascaux is a cave site from the Paleolithic period in which anthropologists concluded that the cave drawings were a form of story telling or a way to record their own lineage.

Neolithic (9000-2000 B.C.E): The Neolithic period  began the construction and fashioning of stone objects. The most famous stone structure of this time is Stonehenge; giant stone rock formations that were believed to be a place of ritual. Because the people in the Neolithic period created with more durable materials, there is more known about the Neolithic period than the Paleolithic. We even continue to use some of the same design principles used during this time: post-and-lintel construction!

The Bronze Age (4000-1000 B.C.E.): The Bronze Age is the most recent of the prehistory and it is also the beginning of the use to creating objects out of metals, such as copper and bronze. The Bronze age began taking place first in the Middle East, while Europe was still making their progress with the structures of the Neolithic period. The Bronze age made more technological progress aside from just using metals; people liked the idea of having different materials as building options so the people of the Indus River Valley began to fire mud bricks to form the structures of their houses.

Modern Day examples of post-and-lintel: