Norsuntepe

Prehistoric site on the upper Euphrates River in eastern Anatolia with a sequence of occupation from the Chalcolithic to Iron Age times. Early levels show connections with Halaf and 'Ubaid. Architecture became more elaborate and there is a probably copper foundry and copper workshops through the ...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Norsuntepe

Kumtepe

A site in northwestern Turkey, overlooking the Dardanelles, close to Troy. Excavations have demonstrated three phases of Early Bronze Age occupation, all earlier than the first settlement at Troy, and probably dating to the earlier 4th millennium BC.

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Kumtepe

Godin Tepe

A site in the Kangavar valley of Luristan, western Iran, with continuous occupation from the early 5th millennium to c 1600 BC (late Iron Age) when it was abandoned following an earthquake and not reoccupied for around 800 years. The cultural sequence provides the framework for the cultural histo...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Godin Tepe

Pincevent

Large Upper Palaeolithic / Late Magdalenian open-air site east of Paris at the confluence of the Seine and Yonne. The project pioneered large-scale horizontal excavation in the western Europe Palaeolithic as well as the plotting and refitting of flint fragments as an aid to reconstructing the liv...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Pincevent

Ozette

A coastal settlement in Washington state occupied for c 1000 years by ancestors of the present-day Makah Indians; a prehistoric culture of the Northwest Coast tradition. Ozette suffered disaster two centuries ago when longhouses and individual dwellings were buried by mudslides and preserved in p...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Ozette

Begram

A site in eastern Afghanistan north of Kabul which has been identified as Kapisa, the capital of several Indo-Greek rulers of the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC and the Kushan summer capital from the 1st century BC to 3rd century AD. It was important for its placement on the caravan route between India...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Begram

Nietoperzowa Cave

Prehistoric cave site northwest of Kraków, southern Poland. There are Middle Palaeolithic assemblages of sidescrapers correlating to the end of the Middle Pleistocene, Last Interglacial, and Early Glacial. Upper Palaeolithic levels contain laurel-leaf points of the Jerzmanowician industry, with o...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Nietoperzowa Cave

Sidi Abd Er Rahman

Palaeolithic site close to Casablanca on the Moroccan coast with Acheulian levels. There are abundant stone artifacts and a mandible attributed to Homo erectus. These are earlier than the Amirian dune (perhaps 0.5 million years old or 'Mindel') and later than the Saletian dune of about 1 million ...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Sidi Abd Er Rahman

Kow Swamp

Large cemetery site in Murray Valley, Victoria, Southern Australia, dated to between 15,000-9000 bp. More than 40 crania and mandibles show marked robusticity of the fronto-facial regions combined with more modern, but still thick-boned, posterior areas of the crania. There is evidence of artific...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Kow Swamp

Sumatra

One of the Greater Sunda Islands and the second largest island of Indonesia with Tianko Panjang cave in Jambi Province yielding an obsidian flake industry dating from c 8000 BC. There is undated cord-marked pottery in the cave's upper layers. The Pasemah megaliths may date from the early 1st mill...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Sumatra

Fenbitou

A site and Neolithic culture on the southwestern coast of Taiwan, dating to 2400-1800 BC.

archaeologsEnglishCultures, Place Names

Fenbitou

Gabillou

An Upper Palaeolithic cave site in Dordogne, southwest France, with Magdalenian levels, including numerous engravings. The engravings are amongst the finest and most delicate ever found from the Palaeolithic period.

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Gabillou

Clovis

A Paleo-Indian culture located on the plateau of Arizona, New Mexico, and western Texas and beginning sometime prior to 10,000 BC. It is so named from its first important site near Clovis, NM. The culture is generally considered to be ancestral to the later Folsom complex and it, like Folsom, was...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Clovis

Madagascar

An island in the Indian Ocean off the east coast of Africa which was one of the last major tropical land masses to be settled by man. There is no evidence for human presence prior to the 1st millennium AD. It is generally accepted that the island's first settlers came from Indonesia, perhaps from...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Madagascar

Banawali

A site in northern Indiana with occupation between 2500-1500 BC. The earliest settlement had pottery similar to Early Harappan. A second phase was urban with residential blocks on regular streets and Mature Harappan-type pottery. The third phase had pottery comparable to Late Harappan wares (Bara...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Banawali

Megiddo

A large tell on a natural hill in northern Palestine, a Biblical city. A town in the Early Bronze Age was built in the early 4th millennium BC and the site was sporadically occupied since the Neolithic and Chalcolithic. It became a great fortified center through its strategic position on the land...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Megiddo

Thrace

Ancient and modern region of the southeastern Balkans; in ancient times, the part north of Greek settlement extending to the Black Sea. In the 5th century BC, it included modern Bulgaria and Romania. Most Thracians became subject to Persia in c 516-510 BC. It was assimilated (356-342 BC) by Phili...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names, Regions

Thrace

Las Bocas

A site in Puebla, Mexico, known for its hollow figurines and other pottery in the Olmec style, at the eastern entrance to the Morelos Plain. Las Bocas is noticeably similar to a site at the other end of the plain, Chalcatzingo, and is thought to have been one of a series of Olmec trading stations...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Las Bocas

Tomskaya

Upper Palaeolithic site in Tomsk, western Siberia, with a small assemblage of burins and retouched blades, c 18,300 bp. It is a rare kill site in Palaeolithic Russia.

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names, Regions

Tomskaya

Ain Hanech

A site in Algeria which offers some of the earliest evidence of human occupation in northern Africa. Stone tools, including choppers and multi-faceted spheroids, dated to 1-1.5 million years ago. There is also mammal fauna of Villafranchian type associated with the tools.

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Ain Hanech

Shuruppak

Ancient Sumerian city-state located south of Nippur in Iraq and originally on the bank of the Euphrates River. Excavations show three levels of habitation extending from the late prehistoric period to the 3rd dynasty of Ur (c 2112-2004 BC). The most distinctive finds were ruins of well-built hous...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Shuruppak

Byzovaya

An Upper Palaeolithic site in Russia, the northernmost Palaeolithic site in Europe (65?) and probably occupied before the last glacial maximum (before 25,000 bp).

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Byzovaya

Lukenya Hill

An inselberg (boulder-hill) in southern Kenya, southeast of Nairobi, with material from the Middle Stone Age to the Late Iron Age. Numerous rock shelters and other sites have preserved this long sequence of prehistoric occupation. A backed microlith industry was established by the 16th millennium...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Lukenya Hill

Valley of the Kings

Rocky valley in the western desert opposite Thebes and just west of Luxor, on the Nile in Upper Egypt, which was chosen as the royal cemetery during the New Kingdom. From 1580 BC, the tombs of the pharaohs were cut in the limestone of its walls. It actually consists of two separate valleys: the e...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Valley of the Kings

Eridu

A tell site at Abu Shahrain, identified as the ancient Eridu, the oldest city of Sumer - possibly the oldest in history. Occupation began in the 'Ubaid period, the earliest phase of which is named after this site, in the mid 6th millennium BC. A series of temples of the 'Ubaid and Uruk periods ha...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Eridu