Winter wasn’t too toasty in city’s oldest house

At this time of year when it’s dark, wet and cold, it’s good to be warm and toasty at home, we all need a bit of exercise or to pop out for shopping but it’s great to get back and into the warmth.

But can you imagine if your house was a simple round wicker work hut, and you and your family were all crammed into it, huddling for warmth?

The image here is the foundation plan of Stirling’s oldest house, it’s around 5000 years old and was discovered during a housing development at Cowie 25 years ago. It comprised two sets of wickerwork walls, presumably with some kind of insulation between them. It was home to some of the area’s first famers, who had come to Cowie because it had light sandy soil, which was very easy to farm. At the same time it lay on the edge of a now lost inland sea which was full of things to eat if the crops failed.

The house was built on far older remains from around 8000 years ago. The remains of fires from our very earliest ancestors who didn’t farm, they were hunter gathers who followed the coast and the migrating herds of deer. All of our ancestors lived very short precarious lives, a broken leg was a death sentence, their average life expectancy was in their late 20s.

While several thousand years separate us and them, they were exactly like you and me, the same eyes, the same ears, the same loves and hates. So, perhaps spare a few minutes over the festive period to think about them and how hard their lives must have been?