It is known that people of the Old Stone Age (see Time Line) had already erected huts and other structures to help them survive the rigours of the climate and to protect themselves against attack from predators.
The first shelters appears to have been made inside or outside caves, using the cave walls to make lean-to structures, made more comfortable with skins. One of the oldest known free-standing huts is the one at Terra Amata near Nice in France. It dates to a glacial period, between 380,000 to 450,000 years ago and is made with branches, bent-over and covered with skins.

A large number of hut sites are known from the Upper Palaeolithic period, particularly from eastern Europe and France. One of the best known lean-to shelters was found at Dolni Vestonice in Czechoslovakia.

It is quite likely that the people at the Culverwell site may also have made some lean-to huts, using the mound of shell debris as a supporting back wall.
Even though a number of post-holes were found at Culverwell, one of the problems at the site is that posts planted into the shell midden would not always have left clearly visible post-holes because of the porous nature of the midden deposit. Because of the huge quantity of living debris and the number of features on the site, there can, however, be little doubt about the fact that Culverwell was a habitation site. (See Culverwell for features).
The Culverwell people may also have made huts of limestone slabs; large numbers of these slabs were found lying round loose on the site and it is possible that they represent the remains of hut walls which were ploughed out in medieval times.
In that part of the floor which is preserved under the split-log structure, a straight line of stones next to a square gap in the floor may mark the position of footings for the wall of a hut or other superstructure.

The simplest method of constructing a hut is one which was followed by the builders of three huts at a site called Bouriet in Siberia during the Upper Palaeolithic period (Timeline).

The following pictures show the experimental building of two primitive huts on the Culverwell site.

A SIMPLE LEAN-TO
It provides adequate protection against wind and driven rain (the prevailing direction)

A LARGER ENCLOSED STRUCTURE
A more sophisticated hut, with a protected interior.
This gives a large floor space and storage area.