With a sharp stone you can cut wood and more easily harvest fibrous materials to make cordage. With cordage, cut wood, and sharp stones you can make tools. With tools you can cut larger pieces of wood, dig clay more easily, and make fire. With fire and clay you can pit fire pottery to carry water and make a wood fired kiln. A kiln can be used to make hardened ceramics like roof tiles and stronger pottery. With steady work the stone tools, cut wood, fired pottery, fired clay tiles, stone and clay walls, can become a home to keep you dry and warm with underfloor heating and a fireplace.
The videos produced by the fellow at Primitive Technology are incredibly inspiring. From the abundant materials found in the Australian bush he made everything he needed by hand.
What’s so inspiring to me is how he stays true to his goal of using primitive technologies and locally available materials. In the video descriptions on his YouTube channel and on his blog, Primitive Technology, he explains his motives and details about this hut in written words for those seeking more.
In a nutshell, he lives in Far North Queensland, Australia and this is a hobby. He lives in a modern home and eats modern food. He travels to the bush to make these projects. The mud hut shown here measures about 2×2 m and took 102 days of work to complete – not including 66 days of rain. The hut’s earthen walls are protected from the rain by the ceramic tile roof.
The big takeaway for me is a reminder… that modern technology and money may make some things easier – like getting fat (haha) – but they can also make many things in life more complex.
