History of Civil Engineering

    Human beings started off being Civil Engineers very early in the development of mankind. We know that people lived in caves or in shelters that they made and probably adapted them. They chose the shelters or caves which were safe from wild animals, floods and rain, sun and probably adapted them to make sure that they were safer and more comfortable. This would be probably the first civil engineering accomplishment, where to live in a safe manner. Probably when they found or invented a small bridge by making a tree trunk fall across the river or placed it across the river, that would have been the first bridge as Civil Engineer. So, the origin of Civil Engineering surely goes back to the time when people started moving around and human beings started to behave similar to what we do today. 

    There is lot of evidences of people living in caves or sheltered areas. Bhimbetka caves in Madhya Pradesh, where 30,000-year-old paintings have been found. It means that people have been living or had lived there 30,000 years or more. There are evidences all over the world that people lived in caves and these caves had to be protected or they chose caves that were well protected. This is the start of Civil Engineer as a provider of habitat, where people lived, how safe can we make that.

    We have evidence, very early in our civilization, of entire cities being built. Mohenjo-Daro where people establish cities, here in this picture you can see part of houses, the walls being built were made with bricks, and between the houses there is a paved street and in the middle of the street there is a drain. You can see that lot of people were probably living there and they had an organized planning of where to live and where the habitats would be. Also, they had well designed streets to move from one place to other and the streets were paved so that they could walk safely, probably their animals and carriages could also move safely. They also thought that their sewage and the storm water should be directed in a certain way, not haphazard everywhere but along the drain, and this drain would probably go somewhere and this was even about 3000 years before the Current Era. So, about 5000 years back from now this existed. People have spent a lot of time, effort and energy in putting together technologies available at that particular period of time to provide these habitats and places to live.

    In India the oldest school of Civil Engineering or the department of Civil Engineering is in the current Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee. It was started hundred years after the school in France in 1847. These are some aspects of the formal way that we have documented Civil Engineering in our country and elsewhere.

Construction is an important front for solidifying the foundations of a thriving country and creating bases for the people’s happy life.

Thanks and Regards,

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