Someone Was Building Before Our Species Existed (Michael Button)

Someone was building long before cities, before farming, and even before our own species existed.

Beneath the Baltic Sea, a stone wall stretches for almost a kilometre. Deep inside a French cave, mysterious rings reveal Neanderthals transforming their surroundings. And beside a river in Zambia, archaeologists uncovered joined timbers dating back nearly half a million years.

But these discoveries raise a much bigger question: how much of our ancestors’ world has disappeared?



Our species, and our close relatives, were building things before farming developed. It's likely that permanent seaside, and even inland, settlements existed for hundreds of thousands of years. But if structures were made from branches or straw, almost nothing would remain. 

[Posted at the SpookyWeather2 blog, October 30, 2026.]