Ancient Roman architecture
Although concrete had been used on a minor scale in Mesopotamia, Roman architects perfected Roman concrete and used it in buildings where it could stand on its own and support a great deal of weight. The first use of concrete by the Romans was in the town of Cosa sometime after 273 BC. Ancient Roman concrete was a mixture of lime mortar, aggregate, pozzolana, water, and stones, and was stronger than previously-used concretes. The ancient builders placed these ingredients in wooden frames where they hardened and bonded to a facing of stones or (more frequently) bricks. The aggregates used were often much larger than in modern concrete, amounting to rubble.
History of construction
No timber structures survive (roofs, floors etc.), so our knowledge of how these were put together is limited. The spans are, in the main, limited and suggest very simple beam and post structures spanning stone walls. For the longer spans it is uncertain if the Greeks or Romans invented the truss but the Romans certainly used timber roof trusses. Before 650 B.C.E. the now famous ancient Greek temples were built of wood, but after this date began to be built of stone. The process of a timber structure being repeated in stone is called petrification or "petrified carpentry".