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Comment by k__ | Hacker News Reader

Didn't the natives have houses or did they just not survive the colonisation?

Two indigenous structures are listed; Colorado and New Mexico both have old pueblo settlements.

Many of the indigenous villages in the mid-Atlantic area were burned by the English for one reason or another. I suspect many permanent settlements elsewhere suffered similar fates.

Sadly, all the Mandan earth lodges in the great plains are reconstructions but still worth visiting.

So does Utah- Hovenweep National Monument is just inside southeastern Utah, dating from 1200-1300. I'm not sure why it wasn't listed.

The listing is "oldest intact buildings" and Hovenweep is a ruin. Though, I'd agree that the listing, as published, is a bit strange, given the Molalla Log House is also a ruin (collapsed roof).

Fair enough - but then we could also discuss the restored kiva at Edge of the Cedars. It isn't a replica, it is a restoration from the original structure. Would that count?

I guess the point being simply that it seems more thought could have been put into the states where Native American structures have survived.

I agree. It's a Euro-centric list, no queston.

Cliff Palace (the oldest one listed for Colorado) certainly isn't "intact". It's definitely a ruin.

That's what the page claims, not my words, so...?

Before I looked at Washington I guessed its oldest structure might be one of the indigenous people's wooden longhouses. But my guess was wrong.

This surprised me as well, as I was under the impression that most / all of what's at Fort Nisqually is replica / reproduction, especially given that it was moved many miles from its original location.

The Colorado and New Mexico buildings are from the native population.

I'm guessing a lot of them didn't survive.

A lot of white peoples' buildings didn't survive either. I'm actually kind of curious how different this list would be if Sherman didn't burn a bunch of southern cities during the Civil War.

Probably would have only affected Georgia's listing, if at all.

Yeah, he didn't burn Savannah, which was by far the oldest city on his route. Atlanta wasn't even 30 years old when he burned it.

He was unusually kind when he got to Savannah. He burned a lot of stuff on the way though. Not sure if any of those places were of significance.

He also destroyed some stuff in SC afterwards.

After Georgia he went through South Carolina with the specific goal of destroying things to punish them for being the state most responsible for the rebellion.

The house I grew up in dates to 1840 and served as an armory during the civil war. Though this was in VA.

A lot of the natives (at least in the NE and Midwest) did not live in shelter that were meant to last for hundreds of years. They lived in semi-temporary small buildings

'The Oldest Building' actually should say 'Oldest Known Building'. Hard to believe that in a country this large there aren't structures that are around (occupied or not) that are simply not catalogued in any way or don't fit with what the article considers a 'building'.

There are was a large city just east of St. Louis that existed 1000 years ago. It vanished long before Europeans came.

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