Sippar

Poverty Point

A site in northern Louisiana with a spectacular group of late Archaic sites, c 1300-400 BC in the Woodland stage. The site consisted of six concentric octagons, each formed of earthen ridges that seem to have been used as dwelling areas. There are also two mounds, and from the larger one the vern...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Poverty Point

Hongshan

A site in Liaoning Province, China, an the name of a Neolithic culture dated to c 3500-3000 BC. Hongshan had elaborate jade animal ornaments, large temple sites, female figurines, and masks.

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Hongshan

Karolta

A site in northwest South Australia with petroglyphs in Panaramitee-style engravings. Dates range from 31,600-1400 bp.

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Karolta

Salzgitter-Lebenstedt

Mousterian hunting site in northwest Germany near Hanover, dated to c 50,000 BP. It yielded reindeer and mammoth remains hunted by Middle Palaeolithic men and an eastern Mousterian assemblage with some western Mousterian artifact-forms. Human skull fragments were found, possibly dating from early...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Salzgitter-Lebenstedt

Alchi

A town in Ladakh, Tibet, where a number of nomads' tombs were discovered and excavated between 1900-1910 by A.H. Francke. Each tomb contained from 3-20 long-headed skulls many small handmade pottery vessels filled with bones and grave goods including bronze beads pendants bracelets and bronze ves...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Pottery, Ancient Cities, Place Names

Alchi

Korucu Tepe

Mound of the Altinova plain of eastern Anatolia where 12 phases of occupation began with the Early Chalcolithic, c 4500 BC. The Korucu sequence, which runs to the Early Iron Age c 800 BC, is used for regional comparative chronology. There is some connection with the Halaf and Kura-Araxes cultures...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Korucu Tepe

Meroe

A site in Upper Nubia, a city-state in the Sudan which succeeded Napata (original capital of kingdom of Kush/Cush) as the capital of a vigorous state flourishing from 750 BC-350 AD. The 25th, or Ethiopian dynasty of ancient Egypt is believed to have retired to Kush after 656 BC and established it...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Meroe

Troy

Ancient city in northwestern Anatolia (Turkey) that holds an enduring place in both literature (the "Iliad" "Odyssey" etc.) and archaeology. A large mound called Hisarlik (or Hissarlik) by the Turks holds the ruins - as discovered by the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann. Between 1870-1890...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names, Ancient Cities

Troy

Ugarit

Important site of an ancient Syrian city, north of Latakia on the Syrian coast, occupied from an aceramic Early Neolithic (7th millennium BC) through the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It was destroyed c 1200 BC; its fall coincided with the invasion of the Northern and Sea Peoples and earthquakes a...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Ugarit

Sohar

The principal town of the Batina coast of Oman in the Sassanian and early Islamic periods, owing its wealth to maritime trade. In the 3rd century it became the center of the Sassanian enclave known as Mazun but did not become prominent until the 10th century, when Omani merchants went to China, t...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Sohar

Vendel Period

A term for a main phase of the Migration Period, the 7th and 8th centuries AD in Scandinavia, the last phase of the Iron Age before the Viking Age. It takes its name from a site in central Sweden with rich burials. Other cemeteries of the Vendel Period are at Valsgarde and Old Uppsala, with buria...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Vendel Period

Tayma

Iron Age city in Hejaz, Arabia. Nabonidus (reigned 555-539 BC) was the last king of the Neo-Babylonian empire and lived there for 10 years. There is a series of large walled compounds and a small mound in the center of town. There is a cultic area and carved scenes with an iconography derived fro...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Tayma

Iblis, Tal-I

A prehistoric mound of Kirman, Iran, occupied off and on in the 5th through 1st millennia BC. The earliest occupation, dating to the early 5th millennium BC (Tal-i Iblis O), is characterized by coarse-tempered red burnished ware made into a variety of simple forms. In the next phase, dated to the...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Iblis, Tal-I

Lyngby

A site in Jutland, Denmark, which has given its name to a kind of small bone implements (axes) made of antler stem and branch and beveled to form a sharp edge. The tools date to c 9000-8000 BC.

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Lyngby

Cai Beo

A site in north Vietnam with a sequence from the late Hoabinhian stone tool so to edge-grinding (c 5000 BC) to Neolithic polished stone adzes (c 4500 BC).

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Cai Beo

Juxtlahuaca Caves

A cave site in Guerrero, Mexico, containing the earliest polychrome painting in the New World. Done in the Olmec style, they are dated to c 3000 years ago and are found nearly a mile inside a mountain. Similar cave paintings have been found in nearby Oxtotilan.

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Juxtlahuaca Caves

Ed-Daba, Tell

A site in the eastern Nile delta of Egypt, probably the ancient city of Avaris, a Palestinian Middle Bronze Age occupation.

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Ed-Daba, Tell

Dabar Kot

A large tell site in the Loralai Valley in north Baluchistan, Pakistan. It was a trading post of the Indus civilization, probably occupied first from the 5th millennium BC; later occupied by other cultures. The later levels have produced material of Harappan type associated with local artifacts s...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Dabar Kot

Serraferlicchio

A site near Agrigento in southern Sicily which has given its name to style of pottery of the Copper Age (3rd millennium BC). It is found mainly in rock-cut tombs and consists of a bright-red slipped ware decorated with black paint in geometric designs. Characteristic forms are open bowls and a va...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Serraferlicchio

Kanjera

A site near Kanam in western Kenya with hand axes of probably Acheulian type in the Middle Pleistocene deposits. Very fragmentary remains of skulls are probably post-Pleistocene.

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Kanjera

Dacia

A Roman frontier province north of the Danube in the area of the Carpathian Mountains and Transylvania, in present-day western Romania, spanning c 106-270 AD. The Dacians were agricultural and worked their rich mines of gold, iron, and silver. As a people, they first lived south of the Danube and...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names, Ancient Cities

Dacia

Alashiya

A site mentioned in texts of the 2nd millennium BC as a source of copper; assumed to be Cyprus. The texts also record the workings of the Sea Peoples c 1200 BC.

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Alashiya

Grotta-Pelos

A culture of a series of archaeological sites in the Cyclades (Early Cycladic I), c 3200-2700 BC.

archaeologsEnglishAncient Pottery, Artifacts, Place Names

Grotta-Pelos

Szeleta Cave

Cave site on the Szinva River in the Bükk Mountains of Hungary, occupied from the Middle Palaeolithic. The Upper Palaeolithic with laurel-leaf points and scrapers is dated c 41,700 bp and there are Neolithic remains.

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Szeleta Cave

Igbo Ikwu

A site in southeast Nigeria dating to the 9th century AD with rich Iron Age deposits and bronze objects. It has yielded remarkable evidence for artistic and technological development and accumulation of wealth in that part of West Africa during the closing centuries of the 1st millennium AD. A co...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names