Hajdusamson

Hadar

A site in northeast Ethiopia, also known as the Afar locality. Hominid fossils found here date back about three million years, and include the most complete early hominid skeleton ever found (‘Lucy’), an individual not much over 90 cm tall. This skeleton and a series of skull pieces have been att...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Haba$E$Ti

A multi-level settlement site of the Late Neolithic Cucuteni culture, located west of Ia§i, north Moldavia, Rumania. The main settlement level, of the Cucuteni A3 phase, has a radiocarbon date of c3130 be. The village of almost 70 houses lies on a promontory site, the neck of which is defended by...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Haba$E$Ti

Guran Tepe

Situated south of Kermanshah in western Iran, Tepe Guran has 21 occupation levels, dated c6500-5500 be. In the earliest, aceramic levels there were remains of wooden huts; it is probable that at this stage the site was a semi-permanent winter camp for goat-herdsmen who also hunted gazelle. In lat...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Gwisho

Group of hot springs in the Kafue Valley of southern Zambia, the scene of intensive ‘Late Stone Age’ occupation during the 3rd and 2nd millennia be. The sites are of particular importance because of the preservation of organic materials in the spring deposits. Grass-lined hollows have been interp...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Guitarrero Cave

Pre-ceramic Period site of long occupation, located at the base of the Cordillera Negra in northern Peru. Stratified deposits have yielded a wide variety of artefacts, both lithic and organic, together with a number of reliable radiocarbon dates. Its earliest level (Guitarrero I) has rendered a d...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Grubenhauser

[German: ‘sunken huts’]. Most early medieval settlement sites in northern Europe are characterized by two types of building: timber dwellings built on the ground surface which have left traces of postholes, stake holes and beam slots, and sunken huts or Grubenhauser. The archaeological remains of...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names, Architectural

Grubenhauser

Greenland

The Icelandic sagas and histories tell of failed attempts to colonize Greenland in the 970s and how the exiled Erik the Red eventually succeeded in 985. It seems that these years were times of famine and overpopulation in Iceland and Erik was soon joined by 25 ships carrying colonists, 14 of whic...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Green Gully

A Pleistocene open-air site in southern Victoria, Australia, near Keilor, occupied between 15,000 and 4000 be. Stone tools include large side-trimmed and concave flakes similar to those in Tasmania and at Ken-niff Cave in the same period, and bipolar cores. Bones of two individuals, one male and ...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Great Wall Of China

Dating as a connected whole from the Qin dynasty (221-206 bc), the Great Wall linked together ramparts built independently during the 4th and 3rd centuries bc by the Eastern Zhou states of Qin, Zhao, and Yan. Though building materials varied with locality, the Qin wall consisted mainly of rammed ...

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural, Place Names

Goumia

A Minoan settlement in eastern Crete, interesting because, unlike most other Minoan sites, it is not dominated by a palace, but appears to be a civilian town with narrow curving streets and many small houses. There was a small palace here, constructed in the Middle Minoan period, but in the Late ...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Goumia

Gornja Tuzla

Tell settlement of the StarCevo, Early and Late VinCa and Late Copper Age periods, located near a narrow valley in upland north Bosnia, Yugoslavia. Pottery typology and radiocarbon dates for levels VI (<4690 — Starcevo) and III (c3760-3630 be — Late Vinca) indicate sporadic occupation intersperse...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Go Mun

(1) The third phase of the Bronze Age of north Vietnam (bronze supérieur), dated clOOO-500 be and immediately preceding the classic Dong-Son phase. (2) A late site within the Phung-Nguyen culture.

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Gomolava

A large, frequently occupied, site comprising two tells, formerly on an island in the Sava River in Srem, northern Yugoslavia. On both tells, the prehistoric sequence is broadly similar and divided into eight levels. Level I has Late VinCa houses and pits (on the south tell, a cemetery with coppe...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Godin Tepe

Site on the Gamur Ab river system of western Iran, with a continuous occupation from the 6th millennium be to cl600 bc, when it was abandoned following an earthquake and not reoccupied for c800 years. Soundings to the earliest levels (Godin VII) revealed two building levels associated with straw-...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Giza

The royal pyramid cemetery of the Fourth Dynasty of ancient Egypt (see Dynastic Egypt), near modem Cairo. Derived from earlier tomb types as seen at Saqqara, the Giza pyramids represent the peak of the concentration of resources on pharaonic funerary monuments. The largest pyramid, that of Khufu,...

archaeologsEnglishRegions, Place Names

Giyan Tepe

A tell site in west-central Iran, whose long occupation sequence has yielded an important pottery typology spanning the period from the late 6th millennium be until the Iron Age. The latest phase belongs to the Assyrian period, when the site seems to have been an outpost of the empire.

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Giyan Tepe

Gilund

A site of the Banas culture in Rajasthan, western India. It was a substantial farming village, with four major phases of occupation. Pottery types include Black and Red ware and a fine black, red and white polychrome ware.

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Geoksyur

An oasis in the ancient delta of the Tedjen River in southeast Turkmenia, Soviet Central Asia, which was first settled in the early Chalcolithic period, in the phase designated Anau I or Namazga I. At this stage typical settlements were small villages of mud-brick houses, though the central settl...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Gaocheng

[Kao-ch’eng]. County in southern Hebei province, China, with widely scattered Shang remains, of which the most notable are those near the village of Taixicun. The main occupation at Taixicun postdates the Erli-gang phase and is either coeval with or, more probably, a little earlier than the histo...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Gamble's Cave

Situated in the central Rift Valley of Kenya, adjacent to a high beach level of the formerly combined lakes Nakuru and Elmenteita, this cave contains a long sequence attributed to the Eburran industry (formerly known as the Upper Kenya Capsian). A later horizon contains an Elmenteitan occurrence.

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Gamble's Cave

Gabillou

Cave with Upper Palaeolithic occupation close to Mussidan in the Dordogne, southwest France. Levels of Mag-dalenian type were found in the cave. Numerous engravings are believed to be of the same date. They are amongst the finest and most delicate ever found from the Palaeolithic period.

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Fontbouisse

A Copper Age settlement in Languedoc, southern France, which has given its name to a cultural group. It is known for settlement sites, megalithic tombs and caves used for burials, and is associated with both extensive flint mining and the first evidence of copper working in this area. The economy...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Fontbouisse

Fell's Cave

Located on mainland Chile near the Straits of Magellan, this is one of the principal sites used in defining the Magellan Complex (the other being Palli Aike). A radiocarbon date of 8700 be taken from its earliest level has helped make credible the widely accepted minimal date of 9000 be for the p...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Fell's Cave

Escomb

A village in Co.Durham which contains one of the most complete upstanding Anglo-Saxon churches in England, the small chapel of St John. A simple double-celled building, its square-ended chancel has a tall narrow chancel arch with jambs formed of monolithic blocks laid in ‘long and short’ style th...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Escomb

Eridu

The most southerly and possibly also the earliest city of Sumer in southern Mesopotamia. A sounding excavated underneath a ziggurat of the late 3rd millennium BC revealed a sequence of 18 religious buildings. The earliest building was a simple mud-brick shrine resting on virgin sand. By the time ...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Erbil

The ancient Assyrian city of Arab’ilu and a modem town in Iraq. It has been continuously inhabited for about 8000 years and provides a living example of the formation of a tell. Because it lies under the modem city there has been little excavation, but it is known from texts that it had a temple ...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names, Ancient Cities

Ellora

Site in central India with several rock-cut Buddhist, Jain and Hindu temples, mainly of the 6th-8th centuries ad. Many of them have fine sculptures.

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

El Garcel

A settlement of the 4th millennium be Almerian Neolithic culture of southeast Spain. Excavations in the 19th century produced evidence of round houses, storage pits, undecorated round-based pottery and, before the end of the settlement, copper slag, suggesting the local development of metallurgy.

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

El Garcel

Ele Bor

A group of rocky outcrops in the north Kenya plains, not far from the foothills of the Ethiopian escarpment. A group of rock shelters yielded a composite sequence extending from ‘Middle Stone Age’ into recent times. A backed-microlith industry appeared at an as yet unknown date and continued in u...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Elateia

The earliest known Neolithic settlement in central Greece, near Phocis, dated to the mid-6th millennium be. Rectangular houses were built of timber with earthen floors. A series of pottery styles has been recognized, starting with undecorated dark-and light-surfaced wares, later replaced by black...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

El Argar

Situated on a hilltop near Almeria in southeast Spain, El Argar is the type site and largest known settlement of the Argaric Bronze Age of the 2nd millennium BC. The settlement was fortified and contained rectangular stone houses, though these are less well preserved than at other Argaric settlem...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

El Argar

Ebbsfleet

A small valley close to Swans-combe and Bakers Hole in southern England with an important series of loams and gravels later than the Swanscombe high-terrace deposits, spanning the last two glacial periods and intervening interglacial. Stone tools included Levallois flakes, but only a few hand axe...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Dura Europus

A tell site on the middle Euphrates River in Syria, which was an important Parthian city, serving as a centre for trade, where merchants from areas as far apart as Palestine and Mesopotamia met. The site was occupied from its foundation by the Seleucids in the late 4th century bc, until its destr...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Dura Europus

Dunhuang

[Tun-huang]. Chinese frontier outpost at the western end of the Gansu Corridor where the Silk Route branches before crossing Central Asia. Dunhuang was established as a Han military commandery in 111 bc and many documents and manuscripts dating from the Han dynasty have been found there. It was a...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Dunadd

A site in Argyllshire, Scotland, which was a nuclear fort of the Kingdom of Dalriada, besieged by the Picts in 683 and 736. Unfortunately, excavations carried out at the beginning of the present century ruined much of the internal plan, but the more recent investigations succeeded in establishing...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Djeitun

The type site of a 6th millennium bc Neolithic culture of Turkmenia, Soviet Central Asia. Characteristic settlements were villages of up to 30 one-roomed houses, built of mud-brick with lime-plastered floors. Both floors and walls were sometimes painted. The subsistence economy was based on cerea...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Dereivca

Late Neolithic site located on the river Omifinev, some 25 km south of Kremencug in the Ukraine, USSR, and dated to the 3rd millennium be. The main site component is a cemetery of the Mariupol type, with 106 extended inhumations arranged in groups. Adjacent to the cemetery is a settlement site wi...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Dereivca