Editing Earth shelter (section)

===Early history===
[[File:Mandan lodge.jpg|thumb|right|Mandan lodge, North Dakota. c. 1908]]
[[File:Interior of the Hut of a Mandan Chief, Mixed media by Karl Bodmer.jpg|thumb|right|"The interior of the hut of a [[Mandan]] Chief": aquatint by [[Karl Bodmer]] from the book "Maximilian, Prince of Wied's Travels in the Interior of North America, during the years 1832–1834"]]
[[File:Iceland Saenautasel Earth covered home outside.JPG|thumb|Turf house in Sænautasel, [[Iceland]].]]
Earth sheltering is one of the oldest forms of building.<ref>Allen Noble, ''Vernacular Buildings: A Global Survey'' (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2013), 112–17. {{ISBN|0857723391}}; Gideon S. Golany, ''Chinese Earth-Sheltered Dwellings'' (Honolulu: Univ. of Hawaii Press, 1992); Golany, ''Earth-Sheltered Dwellings in Tunisia''. (Newark: Univ. of Delaware Press, 1988); and David Douglas DeBord and Thomas R. Dunbar, ''Earth-Sheltered Landscapes: Site Considerations for Earth-Sheltered Environments'' (NY: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1985), 11. {{ISBN|0442218915}}</ref> It is thought that from about 15,000 BC migratory hunters in Europe were using turf and earth to insulate simple round huts that were also sunk into the ground.<ref name=kahn1990>{{cite book |author1=L Kahn |author2=B Easton |title=Shelter |date=1990 |publisher=Shelter Publications, Inc. |isbn=9780936070117 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qKTxzL1J7u0C |language=en}}</ref> The use of some form of earth sheltered construction is found across many cultures in history, distributed widely across the world.<ref name="boyer1987" /> Normally these examples of cultures using earth sheltered buildings occur without any knowledge of the construction method elsewhere.<ref name="boyer1987" /> These structures have many different forms and are referred to by many different names. General terms include [[pit-house]] and [[Dugout (shelter)|dugout]].

One of the oldest examples of [[berm]]ing, dating back some 5,000 years, can be found at [[Skara Brae]] in the [[Orkney Islands]] off northern [[Scotland]]. Another historical example of in-hill earth shelters would be [[Mesa Verde]], in southwest USA. These building are constructed directly onto the ledges and caves on the face of the cliffs. The front wall is built up with local stone and earth to enclose the structure.

In North America, almost every native American group used earth sheltered structures to some extent.<ref name="mcconkey2011" /> These structures have been called '[[earth lodge]]s' (see also: [[Barabara]]).{{citation needed|date=March 2021}} When Europeans colonized North America, [[sod house]]s ("soddies") were common on the [[Great Plains]].<ref name=kahn1990 /><ref name=kahn2010>{{cite book |author1=L Kahn |author2=B Easton |title=Shelter II |date=2010 |publisher=Shelter Publications, Inc. |isbn=9780936070490 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fDHeWyGYNdcC |language=en}}</ref>

In China, man-made cave dwellings have been used as a shelter since 2,000 BC. In certain areas of northern China, like the provinces of Shaanxi and Shanxi, since the loess earth is structurally uniform and compacted, providing easy access to good quality building material with stable structure, earth-sheltered homes have been in use for centuries.<ref name="Long">{{cite web |url= https://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/arch499/nonwest/china/index.htm|title= Chinese Earth Shelter Dwellings: By Paul Long|last= Long|first= Paul}}</ref>