Shelters at Terra Amata
Post holes and hearths on a Mediterranean beach suggest built shelters 400,000 years ago.
- When
- Known to
- ± 50 thousand years
- Era
- Middle Pleistocene, Quaternary
Excavations at Terra Amata in Nice in the 1960s revealed oval arrangements of stones and stake holes interpreted as the bases of branch huts, with hearths inside them — among the earliest claimed built structures. The interpretation has been challenged, with critics arguing the features result from mixed and disturbed deposits. The hearths themselves are less controversial, and are among the better early European evidence for habitual fire.