Although we have tenuous evidence showing that people had been constructing shelters for themselves for hundreds of thousands of years, it is only from late Palaeolithic times that substantial and abundant remains have been recovered.
In cold regions and periods caves and rock shelters were still occupied wherever they were available. Often structures of stone, bone, wood and skins were erected within these, providing protection against the cold and other hazards of the outside and sometimes dividing up the internal space into separate domestic areas around hearths, perhaps representing individual family groups.
Open air camps have also been found: their principal remains are hearths but it has been suggested that these were enclosed within circular tents of wood and skin.
Most spectacular, however, are the remains of dwellings built of mammoth bones and skulls covered with skins which have been found in eastern Europe and Russia. With fires lit within them, they provided some protection against the fierce cold and wind.
In some sites it has been argued that a series of such structures were linked together to provide a tunnel-like dwelling that housed a complete community.
