Post in ground

An earthfast shelter. The posts are buried in the ground so no bracing is necessary.
Some researchers consider sills placed on the ground, rather than on a foundation, to fall under the type earthfast construction. Fishing house without a chimney, circa 1750. Latvian Ethnographic Open Air Museum

Post in ground construction, also called earthfast[1] or hole-set posts, is a type of construction in which vertical, roof-bearing timbers, called posts, are in direct contact with the ground. They may be placed into excavated post holes,[2] driven into the ground, or on sills which are set on the ground without a foundation. Earthfast construction is common from the Neolithic period to the present and is used world-wide. Post-in-the-ground construction is sometimes called an "impermanent" form such as for houses which are expected to last a decade or two before a better quality structure can be built.[3]

Post in ground construction can also include sill on grade, wood-lined cellars, and pit houses. Most pre-historic and medieval wooden dwellings were built post in ground worldwide.

History

This type of construction is often believed to be an intermediate form between a palisade construction and a stave construction. Because the postholes are easily detected in archaeological surveys, they can be differentiated from the other two.

Post-in-ground was one of the timber construction methods used for French colonial structures in New France specifically called poteaux-en-terre.

The Japanese also used earthfast construction they call Hottate-bashira (literally "embedded pillars")[4] until the eighteenth century.

Some places the people still use post in ground construction such as the Toguna shelter of the Dogon people in Africa.

Poteaux-en-terre

In the historical region of New France poteaux-en-terre was a historic style of earthfast timber framing. This method is very similar to poteaux-sur-sol but for the boulin (hewn posts) planted in the ground rather than landing on a sill plate. The spaces between the boulin were filled with bousillage (reinforced mud) or pierrotage (stones and mud).

Gallery of poteaux-en-terre

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Post in ground construction.

References

  1. ↑ Oxford English Dictionary Second Edition on CD-ROM (v. 4.0). Oxford University Press, 2009
  2. ↑ http://www.stavkirke.org
  3. ↑ Carson, Cary, Norman F. Barka, William M. Kelso, Garry Wheller Stone, and Dell Upton. "Impermanent Architecture in the Southern American Colonies." Material Life in America, 1600-1860, edited by Robert Blair St. George, 113-158. Boston: Northern University Press, 1988.
  4. ↑ Gina Lee Barnes. Yamato: archaeology of the first Japanese state. googlebooks?id=S-sDAQAAIAAJ

External links