These dome-shaped dwellings were common everywhere in the eastern woodlands. Frames erected on an oval floor plan were shingled over with slabs of bark stripped from living trees. The near vertical lower walls provided ample sitting room, while the flattened dome roof retained heat from the fire hearth.

Algonquin longhouses were merely wigwams on a longer oval floorplan. Iriquois longhouses carried this concept to an extreme, built as lengthy multi-family dwellings.