🇲🇽 Mexico · Ancient city
San José Mogote
Early–Middle Formative 1500–500 BCE (Rosario phase) · Zapotec (Mogote phase)
Earliest Zapotec urban precursor with Monument 3 captive blood glyph, earliest Oaxacan writing 600 BCE.
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CategoriesAncient villages
The first farming settlements and the houses people lived in.
🇮🇶 Iraq · Ancient village
Protoneolithic (9800–8200 BCE) · Zarzian–PPN (Nemrikian)
Protoneolithic (9800–8200 BCE) Zarzian–PPN (Nemrikian) ancient village at Dohuk Governorate, Upper Tigris/Mosul Dam zone – ppn hamlet with stone sculpture and houses (dims Tell 0.8 ha, 8 PPN houses).
🇲🇽 Mexico · Ancient city
Early–Middle Formative 1500–500 BCE (Rosario phase) · Zapotec (Mogote phase)
Earliest Zapotec urban precursor with Monument 3 captive blood glyph, earliest Oaxacan writing 600 BCE.
🇺🇸 United States · Tell
Ancestral Puebloan (c.600-1300 CE) · Anasazi/Puebloan (Basketmaker to Pueblo III)
Betatakin Cliff Dwelling — buried ancestral tell/village at Arizona.
🇹🇷 Turkey · Tell
Pottery Neolithic to Early Bronze · Central Anatolian Chalcolithic
Three mounds (Canhasan I, II, III) spanning Pottery Neolithic to Chalcolithic-Early Bronze (c.6000–3000 BCE) on the south Konya Plain, bridging Çatalhöyük to Mersin-Yumuktepe.
🇺🇸 United States · Archaeological wonder
Pueblo III 1190–1280 CE (Ancestral Puebloan florescence) · Ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi, Pueblo III)
Largest cliff dwelling in North America: 150 rooms, 23 kivas, 128–150 inhabitants in alcove 88 m deep, 27 m high below mesa top, with coursed sandstone masonry, tower structures and painted plaster,…
🇱🇾 Libya · Ancient village
Medieval to Modern (12th c. CE–20th c.; peak 13th–19th c.) · Berber (Nafusi) / Islamic
Qasr Al-Haj (near Gharyan) is a circular Berber granary (aghadir/ qasr) 12th c. CE, 30 m diameter ring of 114 ghurfas (cells) four storeys high around central courtyard, built of rock and gypsum…
🇸🇾 Syria · Tell
Early–Middle Bronze (2600–1600 BCE) · Euphrates EB – Mitanni
Early–Middle Bronze (2600–1600 BCE) Euphrates EB – Mitanni tell at Raqqa Governorate, Tabqa Dam zone – twin northern town with tell banat across euphrates branch (dims 15 ha northern citadel with Mittani temple).
🇹🇷 Turkey · Tell
Neolithic–Chalcolithic (7040–5400 BCE) · Hacılar culture (Lake District)
Neolithic–Chalcolithic (7040–5400 BCE) Hacılar culture (Lake District) tell at Burdur Province, Lake District – painted pottery type-site with burnt houses (dims Mound 150×120 m, 9 m Late Neolithic–Chalcolithic).
🇳🇬 Nigeria · Archaeological wonder
Iron Age to Modern (c. 400–1900 CE; ritual ongoing) · Iron Age (Early Kano) / Hausa / Fulani
Dala Hill (Goron Dutse pair) is Kano's 534-m granite inselberg nucleus where Kano city was founded by Dala Iron Age smiths (c. 400 CE) before Hausa walling, with 999-step stair.
🇹🇲 Turkmenistan · Ancient village
Geoksyur period (Namazga I–III) Chalcolithic–Early Bronze · Anau cultures (Jeitun→Geoksyur→Altyn)
Chalcolithic to Early Bronze Age tell cluster (4500–3000 BCE) forming proto-urban oasis with 10 villages up to 10 ha each, the largest Namazga-period centre in Kopet Dag piedmont before BMAC.
🇳🇬 Nigeria · Archaeological wonder
Early Holocene (6550 BCE) · Early Holocene Saharan fisher–hunters (Lake Mega-Chad)
Dufuna Canoe is an 8.4-m dugout canoe excavated 1987 from 5 m deep Komadugu Gana floodplain, dated 6556/6384 cal BCE (8500±300 BP), oldest boat in Africa and third oldest worldwide, predating…
🇿🇦 South Africa · Earthwork
Late Iron Age (1500–1820 CE; peak 1700–1820) · Eastern Sotho (Bokoni)
Bokoni (Koni) terraces in Mpumalanga escarpment are 150 ha dry-stone agricultural terraces 16th–19th c., built by Eastern Sotho Bokoni people on hillslopes with road causeways and stock kraal…
🇳🇬 Nigeria · Rock art
MSA to Iron Age (50,000 BCE–1800 CE; rock art 2000 BCE–500 CE) · MSA / Kintampo-related / Iron Age (Borgawa)
Kainji shoreline and islands host Middle Stone Age to Iron Age rock shelters with geometric rock art and 2,000-year mound settlements along Niger River, inundated partially 1968 by Kainji Dam.
🇮🇷 Iran · Tell
Chalcolithic–Early Bronze Age (c.4000–2700 BCE) · Seimareh valley Chalcolithic → Transcaucasian Early Bronze
Seimareh cemetery mound 15 ha (140 EB cist graves, bronze daggers, c.4–3 ka) in Seimareh valley.
🇺🇸 United States · Tell
Ancestral Puebloan (c.600-1300 CE) · Anasazi/Puebloan (Basketmaker to Pueblo III)
Homolovi II Pueblo — buried ancestral tell/village at Arizona.
🇺🇸 United States · Tell
Ancestral Puebloan (c.600-1300 CE) · Anasazi/Puebloan (Basketmaker to Pueblo III)
Kin Biniola Chaco Outlier — buried ancestral tell/village at New Mexico.
🇮🇷 Iran · Tell
Late Chalcolithic (4000–3500 BCE, Bakun) · Bakun A Chalcolithic
Late Chalcolithic (4000–3500 BCE, Bakun) Bakun A Chalcolithic tell at Fars Province, Persepolis plain – proto-urban chalcolithic painted-pottery centre (dims Mound 2 ha, Bakun A workshops).
🇱🇧 Lebanon · Tell
Early Bronze I–III (with Late Chalcolithic) · Early Bronze Levantine (coastal Canaanite)
EB I–III (3200–2500 BCE) coastal village with Egyptian imports — Lebanon's finest EB chronology.
🇺🇸 United States · Archaeological wonder
Pueblo II–III 1120–1250 CE (post-Sunset Crater) · Sinagua / Ancestral Puebloan (Hisatsinom) with Mogollon/Hohokam influences
100-room red-Moenkopi sandstone pueblo with tower-kiva and Hopi-style ballcourt, outlier of Sinagua-Hisatsinom frontier after Sunset Crater eruption (1085 CE) improved farming.
🇸🇿 Eswatini · Archaeological wonder
Middle Stone Age to Iron Age (43,000 BCE–400 CE) · MSA/MSA modern humans
Ngwenya (Lion Cavern) is the world's oldest mine, hematite and specularite 43,000 BCE Middle Stone Age open-cast pit 25 m deep with radiocarbon mining tools and 43 ka charcoal, extracting red ochre…
🇲🇩 Moldova · Ancient village
Chalcolithic (3800–3500 BCE, Cucuteni B) · Cucuteni-Trypillia
Terraced settlement on the Reut river, Cucuteni B / Trypillia BII (c.3800–3500 BCE), ca. 8 ha with dense house clusters and flint workshops. Excavated by T. Passek 1950s and V.
🇲🇽 Mexico · Ancient village
Classic Teotihuacan (Tlamimilolpa) · Teotihuacano (multi-ethnic)
One of 2,000 apartment compounds that made Teotihuacan (100 BCE–550 CE, 200,000 inhabitants — largest city in Americas) a planned grid city.
🇮🇷 Iran · Tell
Neolithic–Bronze (5300–1800 BCE) · Tureng–Gorgan Chalcolithic
Neolithic–Bronze (5300–1800 BCE) Tureng–Gorgan Chalcolithic tell at Golestan Province, Gorgan plain – stratified gorgan plain type-site with grey ware (dims High mound 30 m, 15 ha lower town).
🇲🇽 Mexico · Tell
Postclassic (c.1200-1521 CE) · Mesoamerican Postclassic (Tepanec-Aztec)
Azcapotzalco (Tepanec capital) — buried postclassic tell/village at Mexico City.
