The oldest British and American architecture

                All right folks, here is the part of this Blog that will be slightly less boring than the rest. Or perhaps not. Most likely not. Actually, this subject can be really unappealing but I will do my best to make it less painful than it is. Please don’t hate me for it. I have got a very fragile ego and tremendously low self-esteem so any mean comment will totally ruin my day; or week. So, anyway… what was this post supposed to be about? Oh yes, architecture. Clearly, I can’t fit the entire subject in one post, can I? So I’m considering starting a whole series on this thing. Or I can just lie down and cry for the next few weeks. We will see. But for now take my hand and let us embark on an epic journey to see some old-timey buildings and random monuments. Wowee.

                What’s the best way to start a post about British and American architecture? Obviously, begin with discussing something that was built neither by Brits nor Americans. Duh. As we are all aware of, those nasty Anglo-Saxons (meaning British AND American) had a very unpleasant habit of invading other nations (see: pretty much the entire history of England/Britain and USA). People who used to live in America and British Isles before they were driven out of their homeland and slaughtered (see: pretty much the entire history of England/Britain and USA) left behind some quite interesting structures, which they managed to build before their extinction, for us to see.

                Surely, you must have heard about the Aztecs or the Mayans, with their great cultural and militaristic advancements; and complex, highly developed architecture that still impresses people from around the globe. But that’s not our subject. All the stuff they built is pretty much in Mexico so no one cares. That’s on the other side of the wall; let’s leave them to their tacos. In what is modern-day USA we can also find some pretty impressive old bricks stacked upon each other, too.

Cliff Palace: the largest cliff dwelling in North America. Natives, dressed in traditional jeans and t-shirts, for scale

                Built by the Pueblo culture, the Cliff Palace was inhabited around 12^th – 13^th century CE. It’s pretty impressive when you consider that it was carved into stone using only stone tools with only a mixture of soil, water and ash to hold these things together. The structure is located  in Mesa Verde Ntional Park in southwestern corner of Colorado, in the Southwestern United States. It is one of the best preserved examples of pre-colonial American architecture. Actually, it’s not that impressive when you consider that everything but those cliff dwellings was made out of wood.

A BIG pile of dirt

                That molehill you see on the picture is the Monks Mound, the largest mound at the archaeological site known as The Cahokia Mounds. Yep, that’s a lot of dirt. Those heaps of soil were really popular among what is known as the Mississippian Culture.

Now, this looks a lot better, doesen't it? This is a reconstruction of the whole Cahokia Mounds site.

                Now let’s go across the ocean and visit the Celts. They were people who used to inhabit British Isles before all that fuss with Anglos, and Saxons, and Jutes conquering and stealing the land. And let’s not forget the Romans who invaded Britain even earlier. Actually, most of the architecture that is left from the Ancient Era is Roman with few Celtic ruins scattered here and there.

Roman baths in the city named Bath (no, really). Wish I had a bath like this in my house.

                Romans also built quite a few defensive structures to keep law and order and make Brittania Maior again (Latin puns, anyone?).

Hadrian's Wall - built to keep illegal Pictish immigrants from entering Britannia and stealing jobs from Romans

                 Most of the structures left behind by Celts we can identify as built for defensive purposes, too. That doesn’t mean that Celts were constantly in need of such buildings, of course. Or maybe it does, huh, Romans? Anglos? Saxon? Jutes? I guess we will never know. 

Why would they need such heavy defended structures, I wonder...

Prehistoric stone fort – Dún Aengus. They must have had a really nice view from the penthouse there.

Reconstructed crannog (late Stone Age hut dwelling built out on a lake).

Yeah, that would be all for now. Thanks and bye bye.