Oldest home put up 10,000 years ago according to Mike Pitts and Lewis Smith, The Times, 21 November 2002, p.7. Charred stumps of wooden poles set in circles have been discovered in Scotland, suggesting the earliest Britons lived in semi-permanent homes, along with 30,000 pieces of flint discarded by toolmakers. This suggests a radical reassessment of the lifestyle of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers is necessary as they had a more sophisticated relationship with the land than previously thought. John Gooder, an archaeologist, said, “From the amount of effort they put into this house, they certainly spent more than days there, probably weeks if not longer.”
Editorial Comment: We are not surprised by evidence that ancient Britons were settled farmers rather than wandering hunter-gatherers. It fits the Biblical history of human lifestyles. According to Genesis, human beings were sedentary farmers after the Fall. The first nomad was Cain who was sentenced to a wandering lifestyle as a punishment for murdering his brother. Following Noah’s flood people resumed their settled lifestyle, turned their back on God and tried to build a big tower. After God judged them at Babel many who left Babel became wandering hunter-gatherers because they and the environment continued to degenerate and this was the only way they could survive. The hunter-gatherer lifestyle is not the beginning of an upward evolutionary path to settled city life but the result of judgement and degeneration. (Ref. house, hunter-gatherer, building)