During the Old Stone Age (Palaeolithic), humans were hunter-gatherers. They often migrated following game and sought refuge in temporary natural shelters – most commonly suitable caves. In our lands, these include caves such as Kozarnika, Bacho Kiro, Temnata, and many others. In Western Europe (France, Spain), the first cave paintings appeared, typically depicting various animals that people hunted (for example, in the famous Lascaux and Altamira caves).

At the beginning of the New Stone Age (Neolithic), climate warming led people to gradually produce their own food. They planted crops such as wheat and barley, and domesticated sheep, goats, cattle, and pigs. This lifestyle change meant they needed to live year-round near their fields in permanent dwellings. They settled in locations near rivers that were ideal for farming. In the region of present-day Bulgaria, they used locally available natural materials for building – largely wood and clay, while stone was used more sparingly. You can still see these building techniques in some villages today: they typically constructed a framework of wooden posts with woven branches (wattle), covered it with clay, and occasionally used unfired clay "bricks" (mudbricks). Two-story houses began to appear, and residents sometimes decorated their walls with paintings. They coated floors with clay, while some homes featured wooden "floorboards." These dwellings contained ovens for heating and cooking, along with simple wooden furniture such as low tables and stools. Doorways and window openings were probably covered with animal hides.

Settlements were sometimes enclosed with wooden and clay walls or moats to protect inhabitants from enemy attacks.

During the Bronze Age, Thracians inhabited both the flatlands and mountains of Ancient Thrace. In lowland areas, they established homes on settlement mounds or elevated places near rivers. In mountainous regions (most of our information comes from the Rhodope mountains), they built settlements on convenient, gentle slopes, along ridges, and even on certain peaks. Their communities were typically small and rarely fortified, and their house-building techniques did not differ much from those of earlier periods. Archaeological evidence shows that some dwellings were larger than others, featuring one semicircular short wall. All houses used wattle construction – poles driven into the ground with branches woven between them, then plastered with clay. In some cases, stone reinforcements strengthened the foundations.

Our knowledge of Neolithic, Chalcolithic, and Bronze Age settlements and houses comes from archaeological excavations of their remains along with discoveries of ceramic (clay) models depicting houses, ovens, tables, and stools.