Dear WW: Perhaps the 1808 was supposed to be 1808 BC. But I'll bet it's a hell of a lot older than that. In places where skins were hard to get, it didn't take a rocket scientist to plug gaps in huts with damp soil or clay if clay were available.
Some of the sources I looked at also mentiond "cob" which was a mixture of clay and straw. This reminded me of Biblical complaint about difficulty in making bricks without straw. It was a long time before I dound out that straw used with poor quality clay was used for building blocks.

"Readers of the Bible may be reminded of a section in the Book of Exodus
known as "bricks without straw." In this passage, Moses asks Pharaoh for
time off for the Hebrew slaves to pray in the desert, as God commanded.
Pharaoh becomes enraged by what he sees as the slaves' laziness, and he
orders that they no longer be given straw to make bricks. Yet they must
produce the same quota of bricks as before. The slaves would have to find the
straw (its chemicals hardened the mud used to make bricks) for themselves.
Of course, the slaves could not scour the countryside for straw and make
bricks at the same time. But God was on their side, and what followed is
well-known: the 10 plagues visited on the Egyptians, the Exodus and the
Promised Land. "

For the Biblical passage, which is rather long, see:

http://www.biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible?passage=exodus+5