by Debra Menager

Created on: August 25, 2009   Last Updated: August 28, 2009

From stone-age men who first whittled wood to our nation's forefathers, foundations and frameworks (structural and cultural) for civilization emerged and evolved. It was built and rebuilt by carpenters and proto-carpenters, those who began construction long before their profession was named: carpentry.

All carpenters (ancient and modern) use wood: they build and repair structures. Pieces of wood are cut, combined, assembled, and finished to fulfill needs. With their hands and tools, carpenters carve new forms from what nature offers, or recycle and build further upon past efforts: their own and others. Some structures are solely wooden, a carpenter's domain. But, much of mankind's history was built when carpenters combined their craft with those laboring in other specialized professions; carpenters provided supportive bases, foundations and frameworks, and scaffolding for constructions and creations by artists and painters. Carpenters understanding of structure has also helped form new civilizations.

Early Europeans (about 10,000 years ago) erected long houses, wooden homes from timbers as long as 100 feet. A Neolithic city 9,000 years old (Catalhoyuk near Konya Turkey) relied on post and beam supports for mud bricks; its remnants remain as a testament to enduring construction practices. Possibly the first city, until 5600 BC its flourishing population (agrarians and artisans estimated at several thousand inhabitants) lived within a unified series of structures linked together like a fort. Heavy timber beams supports in a roof mixed with smaller beams, reeds, and mud on top. About 37 centuries ago, the Palace of Knossos (the fabled Minotaur-riddled labyrinthine structure on the Mediterranean island of Crete) used half-timbered reinforcements for mud brick and stone walls, with wooden columns whose shafts tapered downward (a pattern reversed in later Greek columns).

Carpentry aptly was named after Roman Empire woodworkers who built chariots for fast travel (helping conquer and build that vast empire). Roman workers also built wooden framework forms encasing vast highways of newly poured cement aqueducts; bringing water great distances was another requisite for that empire's spread. Numerous building programs spread Roman structures and carpentry throughout conquered lands, growing that empire; Romans incorporated knowledge and resources from conquered peoples, combined with their own. Carpentry flourished.

Continuation of carpentry (and its evolution) was threatened,

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