Eight Generations of Saunas Human beings enjoy warmth. We are also learning creatures. Our early ancestors may well have bathed in hot springs, just like Japanese snow monkeys. But hot springs are not available to most people in the northern hemisphere, so it wasn’t until fire was tamed that people could develop different types of heat rooms. The first Finnish saunas were simple pits covered with animal skins. They were used by hunters who arrived in the land 10,000 years ago, after the Ice Age. Steam was generated in such earth pit saunas by throwing water on stones heated in a campfire. Earth pit saunas have disappeared from Finland, but Native American sweat
lodges preserve a similar tradition. The modern equivalent of an earth pit sauna is a tent sauna, which is easy to relocate, just like its predecessor. As the population gradually settled after the Stone Age, the sauna also began to find its place. The second-generation sauna was born: the ground sauna, which was easiest to build, for example, on a riverbank. The ground sauna featured an earthen floor, three walls dug into the ground, a fourth wooden door wall, and a turf roof piled on a few tree trunks. In the corner by the door, there was a simple stove. A log was cut in half lengthwise and placed along the rear wall as a bench.
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