Ohlone Buildings

Ohlone villages contained a variety of structures, including houses that held up to 8 to 12 people, partly underground assembly and dance houses, smaller sweat lodges, above-ground granaries for storing food and protecting it from animals and moisture, and temporary camps for seasonal gathering and hunting. Everything was made from locally available materials. Houses were usually dome-shaped and covered with grass or tule thatching, while other houses in the region were cone-shaped, built from tree boughs and covered with redwood bark slabs. Early Spanish expeditions described the assembly houses as large enough to hold the entire village, and these partly underground assembly and dance houses were large earthen lodges with log, thatch, and earth-covered roofs supported by large center poles.

California · United States