The oldest archaeological evidence of house construction comes from the famous Oldupai Gorge (also called Olduvai Gorge) site in Tanzania, and the structure is around 1.8 million years old. Nobody knows exactly which proto-human species is responsible for the tools (and houses) found at Oldupai.

While the very "first" house is lost to time, the oldest known remains of a human-built dwelling date back roughly 2 million years to a simple stone circle found at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, likely built by Homo habilis. In terms of permanent, complex architecture, the Göbekli Tepe site in Turkey (c. 9500 BCE) is often cited as the oldest monumental structure, though its primary use was likely ritual. For domestic living, the Neolithic settlement of Jerf el Ahmar in Syria and the stone houses of Knap of Howar in Scotland (c. 3700 BCE) are among the earliest well-preserved examples of "homesteads." These early homes transitioned humanity from nomadic cave-dwelling to sedentary agricultural communities, featuring central hearths and stone walls that have stood for millennia.