AUSTRALIA
HOUSING AND ACCOMODATION
The native peoples of Australia did not build any permanent structures
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The natives built, when they did build a shelter, very crude shelters designed for very short periods normally from raw materials around them, using branches for a frame and bark or thatch to cover the frame.
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A humpy, also known as a gunyah, wurley, wurly or wurlie, is a small, temporary shelter, traditionally used by the natives These impermanent dwellings, made of branches and bark are sometimes called a lean-to, since they often rely on a standing tree for support.
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In the warmer climates the simple solution was to create a small indentation in the ground with small fire to sleep next to and obtain a piece of bark to use as a wind break if needed during the night
Excerpt from the diary of Watkin Tench of the First Fleet :
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It does not appear that these poor creatures have any fixed habitation; sometimes sleeping in a Cavern of Rock, which they make as warm as a Oven by lighting a Fire in the middle of it, they will take up their abode her, for one Night perhaps, then in another the next Night. At other times [and we believe mostly in the summer] they take up their lodgings for a Day or two in the Miserable Wigwam, which they made from Bark of a Tree. There are dispersed about the woods near water, 2, 3, 4, together; some Oyster, Cockle and Muscle Shells lie about the Entrance of them, but not in the Quantity to indicate they make these huts for their constant Habitation. We met with some they seemed entirely deserted indeed it seems pretty evident that their Habitation, whether Caverns or Wigwams, are common to all, and alternatively inhabited by different tribes.
