Avebury

A site in Wiltshire, England, at which stands one of Britain's finest megalithic monuments (known as henges) and one of the largest ceremonial structures in Europe. It was built c 2000 BC in the Neolithic, where the ridgeways of southern England meet, a natural site for tribal gatherings. It cons...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Avebury

Kephala

A Late (Final) Neolithic settlement and cist grave cemetery on the Cycladic island of Kea, dated to the mid-4th millennium BC. The cemetery of graves made of small flat stones in circular or rectangular constructions each had a number of burials. Children were commonly buried in pottery jars (pit...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Kephala

Sounion

Promontory in Attica, Greece, on which was the temple of Poseidon, dated to the mid-5th century BC. This classical sanctuary site probably goes back to the 7th-8th century BC, and it was traditionally popular as a refuge with runaway slaves. It was fortified in 413 BC by a substantial wall enclos...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names, Ancient Cities

Sounion

Sparta

A small town in the central Peloponnese, Greece, which in the Classical period created the Peloponnesian League and organized the military forces that broke the Athenian empire and subjugated Athens in 404 BC. It was reputedly founded in the 9th century BC, later the capital of the Laconia distri...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Sparta

Asiab, Tepe

Tepe Asiab, a semi-permanent settlement in the Zagros region of western Iran, dated between 7100-6750 BC, belonging to the Karim Shahir culture. There is evidence of tool manufacture, settlement patterns, and subsistence methods, including the crude beginnings of the domestication of both pl...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Asiab, Tepe

Naples

Naples was founded about 600 BC as Neapolis ("New City") by Greek settlers close to the more ancient Palaepolis. Both towns were extensions of Greek colonies on the nearby island of Pithecusa (now Ischia) and at Cumae on the adjacent mainland. The principal Greek city of Campania southern Italy i...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Naples

Ali Kosh

An early farming site near Deh Luran in southwestern Iran, occupied c 7500-5600 BC. It was the first excavated farming site where significant quantities of plant remains were collected using the flotation technique, a landmark in the study of farming origins. The earliest phase, named Bus Mordeh ...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Ali Kosh

Guitarrero Cave

A stratified cave site of long occupation in the Callejón de Huaylas in northern Peru. It was occupied in the Preceramic period (c 12,500-6000 years ago) and continued through later ceramic periods, showing domesticated lima and common beans by c 8000 BC. A wide variety of artifacts, lithic and o...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Guitarrero Cave

Amapa

A site in Mexico dating from 250-700 AD, occupied again from 900-1200. Metal artifacts were produced from 900, suggesting a connection with Mesoamerican cultures at the time.

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Amapa

Pithekoussai

A volcanic island off the northern part of the Bay of Naples, and site of arguably the earliest Greek colony in the western Mediterranean. Lying on sea trade routes to Italy, and especially Etruria, the colony was established by Euboean Greeks from Chalcis and Eretria, c 775-750 BC. The Monte Vic...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Pithekoussai

Ampajango

A site in Catamarca Province, northwest Argentina, with a river terrace containing a complex of bifacial tools dating c 10,000 BC.

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Ampajango

Marlik Tepe

Early Iron Age royal cemetery of the late 2nd millennium BC southwest of the Caspian Sea in northern Iran. Its tombs include a wealth of gold and silver vessels, jewelry, and weapons. Some graves have rectangular stone slabs on which the body with its grave goods was laid and then covered with ea...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Marlik Tepe

Jarmo

A small aceramic Neolithic to ceramic Neolithic village site in the foothills of the Zagros mountains of northern Iraq. Jarmo was used to explain the origins of food production by Robert Braidwood, as the site dates to the later 7th millennium BC and there was carbonized wheat and barley. Its rad...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Jarmo

Horsham

A site in southern England where a number of Mesolithic flints have been found, including a hollow-based point which is sometimes called a Horsham point. It was once considered characteristic of a Horsham culture or group.

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Horsham

Routsi

Site of a Mycenaean tholos tomb in Messenia, Greece, with grave goods including bronze weapons, gold, amber and glass jewelry, and pottery.

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Routsi

Mohenjo-Daro

One of the two capitals of the Indus civilization, the best known of the Mature Harappan cities, located in the Sind region on the right bank of the Indus in Pakistan. Radiocarbon dates and corroboration with Mesopotamian data date the capital to about 3000-1700 BC. The city, covering approximate...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Mohenjo-Daro

Bir Kiseiba

A site in southern Egypt's Sahara with early ceramics and cattle bones dating to c 9500 BP.

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Bir Kiseiba

Inca Pirca

A site in Ecuador with a unique oval platform faced with cut stone. On its summit was a gable-roofed building. It may have had a religious use or could have been a castle or guardhouse.

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Inca Pirca

Alishar

A tell southeast of Boghazköy in central Turkey which yielded many occupation levels from Chalcolithic (late 4th millennium) to Phrygian (1st millennium BC). The lowest stratum had eight Chalcolithic levels. The Early Bronze Age levels are characterized by painted pottery with a buff or light red...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Alishar

Babylonia

An ancient region occupying southern Mesopotamia between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (southern Iraq from Baghdad to the Persian Gulf), whose capital was Babylon for many centuries. The term Babylonia also refers to the culture that developed in the area from its original settlement c 4000 BC ...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Regions, Place Names

Babylonia

Byci Skála

A prehistoric cave site near Brno, Czechoslovakia, with artifacts and faunal remains of the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic and the Hallstatt (Early Iron Age). There are sidescrapers and burins, numerous bronze objects, inhumation burials and cremated bones. Several burials included wagons with iro...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Byci Skála

Periam

A tell site near Arad, Romania, the type site of the Early-Middle Bronze Age culture, dated to the mid-2nd millennium BC. It is the Romanian aspect of the Periam-Mokrin-Szöreg group. It is largely contemporaneous with the Otomani or Füzesabony culture. A culture layer yielded a rich collection of...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Periam

Damascus

A rich oasis city at the inland end of a pass in Syria and the modern capital of Syria. Damascus was occupied by the 3rd millennium BC, but the settlements of the prehistoric, biblical and Roman periods underlie the modern and medieval city and are therefore not readily available for excavation. ...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names, Ancient Cities

Damascus

Zawi Chemi Shanidar

Village site in northern Iraq near Shanidar Cave with a terminal epi-Palaeolithic under Iron Age levels. Storage pits and a circular stone structure are dated to the 9th millennium BC. Large numbers of sheep bones are claimed to show signs of domestication at that time. Sickles, grinding stones, ...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Zawi Chemi Shanidar

Mildenhall

A town in Suffolk, England, famous for the treasure of silver comprising the household silver of a wealthy Roman family near the remains of a 4th-century Roman building. The silver was richly decorated with figured reliefs and the 34 pieces include a large dish depicting the head of Oceanus, ring...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Mildenhall