Knowing Shelter – Knowing People
How are shelters the same and how do they differ? Why do they differ?
Everyone needs shelter, but everyone has a different idea of what a shelter should look like. There are many reasons for the differences we see in shelters across the globe. Generally speaking, there are five factors that influence shelter:
- environment (climate and topography),
- culture (social values),
- history (conventions and norms),
- technology (materials, knowledge, and equipment), and
- function (intended use).
These factors interact to create unique shelters that vary widely.
Most people in the United States live in some type of structure like a house, apartment, or trailer. Some of our citizens do not have enough money to buy or rent a place to live, so they live in homeless shelters or even in their cars. While these shelters may be very different in structure and style, they serve the same purpose–protection from the elements–and all can tell us something about their occupants.
In some places such as Mongolia, people live in yurts, large tents that can be moved as the people move their herd animals to new pastures. Yurts make very effective shelters in the Mongolian climate, and people decorate them with beautiful rugs and draperies. Some Native Americans still live in their traditional dwellings: many Diné (Navajos) still live in hogans, their traditional six-sided house, and some members of Plains tribes still live in tipis part of the year. Many Native Americans do not actually live in their traditional shelters, but still use them for ceremonial or social purposes.
In the past, people from various cultures lived in a variety of shelters such as sod shanties or even caves. These dwellings may seem primitive to us, but they were usually snug, warm, and dry and made good use of the available materials and technology. People are very adaptable; the variety of ingenious shelters that people used in the past and continue to use today serves as testament.
Archaeologists usually use the term “shelter” rather than house or home. When they find the remains of a structure, they often don’t know how it was used. Shelter is broadly used to refer to a variety of structures. Some examples include the tipi (an enclosed portable structure), a ramada (open on all sides with a roof for protection against sun and rain), or a pithouse (a semi-subterranean house with a brush or mud roof).
Students usually call the place where they live “home” rather than “shelter.” The word home is a term for any structure that protects us from weather, that can keep us safe, or where we can get our basic needs met—food, water, safety, and protection from the elements. These structures can include a house, a motel, a homeless shelter, an apartment, condominiums, and so on.
All people need shelter, but shelters are different from one another.
What basic needs must all humans meet in order to live?
How are shelters the same and how are they different?
What is the purpose of shelter?
Why are they different?
What makes a shelter a home?
This background information is from Lesson One of the award-winning guide, Project Archaeology: Investigating Shelter, a supplementary science and social studies curriculum unit for grades 3 through 5. The unit supports Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in literacy and mathematics, especially through modeling the investigation process. Because of the interdisciplinary nature of archaeology, students can seamlessly integrate science (STEM) with literacy, mathematics, social studies, and history. The unit consists of nine comprehensive lessons guiding students through the archaeological study of shelter including a toolkit of archaeological and scientific concepts and a final performance of understanding.
As a class, you can choose from more than eighteen shelters to investigate. All the shelter investigations are free to download with the purchase of Investigating Shelter, which contains a password to access all the digital shelter investigations.
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