Dave sent me the information about these photos that are on a really cool site of historical pictures called Shorpy Historic Archive.
Dugout house of homesteaders Faro and Doris Caudill with Mount Allegro in the background. Pie Town, New Mexico. The Caudills at dinner. 35mm Kodachrome transparency by Russell Lee.
Before industry and technology gave us sawmills and frame houses, this is how the average person lived in much of the world. The dugout or pit house, with sod roof, log walls and earthen floor, is among the most ancient of human dwellings — at some point in history your ancestors lived in one.