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Comment by emptysongglass | Hacker News Reader

Naive question but couldn't our forerunners who otherwise succumbed to cold in harsher climates have exploited this fact to dig subterranean villages and towns?

What's the element I'm missing as to why they didn't?

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Pre-industrial holes may collapse long before you reach -100 meters. Even -5 meters is a challenge in certain places.

Also, digging (or rather drilling) in bedrock is hard without motorized equipment and good steel.

Also, supplying fresh air down there is a problem.

Also, preventing the mine from flooding is usually a huge problem.

Mining is hard and a lot of people lost their lives doing that. That said, if your only intent is to get a bit warmer, you may basically try a good cave. Caves tend to have temperatures above freezing for the whole year.

And of course the difficulty with caves is hibernating predator(s) (bear is the one I can think of maybe more?)

And lions:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panthera_spelaea

IDK if these lions hibernated, but their bones are definitely found in caves all over Europe. Often with human remains or artifacts nearby.

Difficulty of digging with the tools they had, inability to stabilize the structure to prevent cave-ins, lack of pumps to remove accumulating water, insufficient ventilation and filtration technology/unable to deal with poison gases, inability to light their environment without contributing to the poor air quality, difficulty accessing resources like food and clean water, lack of desire to live in a damp, dusty hole.

Also for example Finland can be at least in north considered harsh climate. But these are also areas that suffered of ice age that scrapped most of the softer rocks away leaving only the tougher stuff like granite. Which makes digging very difficult, specially pre-industrial times.

That it is really hard to dig down 100m without modern digging equipment.

Ever tried to dig down a few 100m in your garden?

More like, ever tried to dig down more than a foot or two? Unless you have really soft ground, even a good steel spade and shovel aren't any guarantee of success. Powered augers are often needed to make holes for fence posts, etc.

Try 390m, by hand:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodingdean_Water_Well

Digging 100m down is difficult and dangerous

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