How did they do it? I dig in three feet and suddenly the walls collapse in and I'm striking rocks often as big as my arm. And yet online there are numerous dirt homes well over your head in depth with straight carved walls. I don't get it!
Dig...
How did they do it? I dig in three feet and suddenly the walls collapse in and I'm striking rocks often as big as my arm. And yet online there are numerous dirt homes well over your head in depth with straight carved walls. I don't get it!
Proper use of compaction
depends on the geology
think about it
what if you went to the desert and tried
the ground is different everywhere, nut just what you can see easily
be careful digging is dangerous and the value of life of these people is zero
looks like a great way to speedrun lung disease. an old injun is a rare thing.
what do you, work for OH&S?
Not really, for the same reason you can stand next to a fireplace and not breathe any smoke. Air flows in from the vent, smoke flows up and out through the smoke hole.
Be a bit different if the fire were in the middle of the room and the "chimney" was only a hole in the ceiling. I'm pretty sure it would be smokey as frick if built according to OP's pic.
Apparently not the biggest concern. Radon levels in the walls were apparently 30x the acceptable modern rate.
https://theclassicjournal.uga.edu/index.php/2019/05/24/cancer-causing-radiation-filled-homes-of-ancestral-native-americans-in-new-mexico/
Ok UGIDF, I'm going to keep digging despite the pretty yellow rocks
Are you installing posts?
I'm digging a hole. I don't know anything about posts or proper construction technique
Your OP pic shows posts.
You CHOSE not to know. Why did you not read how trenches and bunkers are built with wood?
Are you moronic? Everything you want to do was solved THOUSANDS of years ago. Copy success.
What...what's the sipapu for?
human waste and camping debris
milking
piss bottles
Apparently it's just a...hole that they make for ceremonial purposes since the first humans came out of a hole in the grand canyon as half lizard people (not making this up btw)
I think I'm going insane. I swear we had this exact thread with the same exact replies last year around this time.
Wake up, Trent, we miss you.
First of all those walls are sloped. If you make straight wall anything more than a few feet, you're not only asking for a collapse, but a fatal one - to you. That is why shoring is mandatory with any trenches more than 6 feet deep (osha50 guys can correct me).
That kiva or whatnot looks like it's max 4 feet deep, with sloped walls. Desert material out there, is like nature's concrete. It's very unlikely to rain, and when it does, it will run off the roof and away from the walls.
Get yourself a high-quality mattock or other similar tool. Sounds like whatever you're digging into has a lot of clay and rock.
I've seen museum exhibits of similar pit houses. They're about 10 ft deep
Digging the ventilation tunnel seems like it's the most dangerous part.
Not really. Dig a slope wall trench, make a stick roof for the shaft halfway up the trench, backfill over the roof.
Local geology is a major factor in these. You need right kind of soil. If it's too soft, it'll just crumble. If it's too hard, digging is a pain.
Example: I live in Finland. The last ice age pushed pretty much all our topsoil into the bottom of the Baltic Sea and left behind only barren rocky landscape. All current topsoil has accumulated in the last 10,000 years, and it really isn't much.
In most places it's just a few meters of dirt and then granite bedrock. Digging even three meters deep holes requires quite specific spots. That's why most of the cellars are mound cellars. Because you really can't dig that much deeper.
Any kind of underground building requires power tools and possibly explosives (again, it's granite bedrock a hand-held pickaxe won't do jack shit), so most of those structures are rather new. That doesn't mean we don't like to build underground, we have whole cities down there. It's just really expensive and a pain in the ass to do so.
This kind of "half buried" domiciles... yeah, not really feasible here. Especially using primitive tech.
TIL Feather Indians put belly buttons on their houses
Depends on the ground dummy. Sometimes da dirt ain't like diggin
It is to complicated for you to make it livable.
you need an constant air flow and anti water membrane, secured walls, floor, and roof. Stove that won't poison you with carbon.
When you search for information. consider the type of info you want to search. I will try to make a pseudo category:
Encyclopedic
Almanacs
then:
elementary books
and
instruction or how to do it books
Then all those fall under the level of sophistication, lets say science-academics, then in the middle school boys- those who master elements then there are noobs as you.
First you search in lets say wikipaedia, lets say you read of type of constructions you are interested in, then go for an almanac of construction. Those will present all shorts of constructions and their parts. Then search based on what you found there, and how to book, an example for you, how to make a basement. then all those elements that are named there and you don't know you search in an elementary books, or repeat the process of wiki, almanac and how to...
But in your place, if you are homeless and paranoiac. better build a tent between trees and for security make a fence from metal wires and get some defense weapon. from there you regroup for your next move.