The Neolithic long house was a long, narrow timber dwelling built by the first farmers in Europe around 7,000 years ago. Long houses are present across numerous regions and time periods in the archaeological record.
It is thought that these Neolithic houses had no windows and only one doorway. The end farthest from the door appears to have been used for grain storage with working activities being carried out in the better lit door end and the middle used for sleeping and eating.
Twenty or thirty people, could have lived in each house with villages of six or seven houses known. They first appeared in central Europe in connection with the early Neolithiccultures such as the Linearbandkeramic.
Structurally, the Neolithic long house was supported by rows of large timbers holding up a pitched roof. The walls would not have supported much weight and would have been quite short beneath the large roof. Sill beams ran in foundation trenches along the sides to support the low walls. A long house would measure around 20m in length and 7m in width.
In levels of excavation dating 500 years he found the remains of a number of round houses roughly 6 metres in diameter, which are the oldest Mesolithic houses to be found in Ireland and they predate anything found in Britain.
The house measured 6.5 metres by 6 metres, it was orientated from east to west.
Most Bronze Age houses seemed to have been curvilinear using the wattle and daub building method, however an oval shaped stone built house was found at Carrigillihy, Co. Cork dating to c.1100 B.C. This house was surrounded by a yard and enclosed by a stone wall and two similar sites were found at Aughinish Island.
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