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CategoriesAncient villages
The first farming settlements and the houses people lived in.
🇺🇸 United States · Ancient village
Pueblo IV to 1672 Spanish mission · Tompiro Pueblo / Salinas Spanish Missions (Franciscan)
Gran Quivira excavated by Vivian & Toulouse 1923, 1672 drought depopulation 16,000 to 0.
🇺🇸 United States · Ancient village
Ancestral Puebloan Pueblo III (1200–1300 CE) · Ancestral Puebloan (Hisatsinom)
Mesa Verde Mug House excavated by Rohn 1960s, 80 rooms, backcountry ranger permit only.
🇺🇸 United States · Ancient village
Pueblo IV Glaze A (1350–1480 CE) · Ancestral Tano (Rio Grande Puebloan) Mogollon-influenced
Pottery Mound excavated by Hibben 1953–61, murals similar to Hopi kachinas 100 km west.
🇺🇸 United States · Ancient village
Pueblo IV (1260–1400 CE) Homolovi Cluster · Hopi ancestral (Hisatsinom)
Homolovi excavated by Fewkes 1896 and Adams & Hays 1980–, Hopi migration to mesas.
🇺🇸 United States · Ancient village
Sinagua (1125–1250 CE) · Sinagua
Walnut Canyon excavated by Fewkes and Colton 1930s, Sinagua canyon rim and canyon.
🇺🇸 United States · Ancient village
Chacoan (950–1140 CE) · Ancestral Puebloan Chacoan
Kin Bineola excavated by Vivian 1960s, Chaco road to south Bonito via South Gap.
🇵🇰 Pakistan · Ancient village
Harappan Transitional (2800–2600 BCE Nausharo I–III) · Amri-Nal → Kili Gul Mohammad → Harappan
Nausharo excavated by Jarrige, painted pottery transition and figurine workshop.
🇺🇸 United States · Ancient village
Mimbreños Classic (1000–1150 CE) Mimbres Black-on-white pottery · Mogollon Mimbres (Mogollon)
Mimbres excavated by Cosgrove 1920s, 800 Mimbres bowls with fish, human scenes.
🇺🇸 United States · Ancient village
Sinagua (1125–1400 CE) Hohokam-Sinagua blend · Sinagua
Tuzigoot excavated by Caywood & Spicer 1933–34, hill pueblo over marsh.
🇺🇸 United States · Ancient village
Sinagua (1100–1350 CE) · Sinagua (Southern Sinagua)
Montezuma excavated by Mearns 1890, no Aztec link, 45 rooms 5 tiers.
🇧🇫 Burkina Faso · Ancient village
Iron Age · Bwa / Mouhoun
Tell cluster of 13 mounds (100 BCE–1600 CE) showing egalitarian agrarian villages resisting hierarchy. Iron smelting, shea, cattle, beaded ceramics; ancestor compound mound model vs state-formation.
🇪🇬 Egypt · Ancient village
Old Kingdom to Roman · Egyptian
Cliff sanctuary with rock-cut Hathor/Nemesis chapel, pink limestone quarries supplying Amarna, and 12th Dyn rock-tombs of nomarch Wahka with nautical graffiti. Miners' camp and Roman road station.
🇹🇷 Turkey · Ancient village
Neolithic to Chalcolithic (PPNB-derived) · Anatolian Neolithic (Catalhoyuk East/West)
Largest Neolithic proto-city (7500–5700 BCE) with 18 settlement levels, mud-brick houses entered via roofs, wall paintings, bull bucrania and earliest landscape painting. Population up to 8,000.
🇵🇸 Palestine · Ancient village
Natufian to Bronze Age (12,000 BCE onward; tower c.8300 BCE) · Natufian → PPNA/PPNB → Canaanite
Tell with Natufian through Bronze Age layers including Pre-Pottery Neolithic A stone tower (c.8300 BCE) and wall – among earliest monumental architecture and fortification. Biblical Jericho.
🇨🇳 China · Ancient village
Neolithic Majiabang (7000–5800 BCE) · Majiabang culture (Taihu Lower Yangtze rice)
Majiabang is the type site of Majiabang culture (7000–5800 BCE) — earliest Lower Yangtze rice paddy village with pile-dwelling houses, jade, and Hemudu-type black pottery on the Taihu plain.
🇱🇾 Libya · Ancient village
Greek / Punic / Roman · Greek then Punic / Roman
Hill of the Graces where Greek Cinyps colony (520 BCE) briefly rivalled Cyrene before Libyan expulsion. Later Tripolitanian olive villa cluster feeding Leptis port; terraces and cisterns.
🇱🇰 Sri Lanka · Ancient village
Iron Age to Early Historic (1000 BCE–300 CE) · Tamil megalithic to early Buddhist (Jaffna Dravidian)
Kantarodai is an Iron Age cemetery (1000 BCE–300 CE) north of Jaffna, a 2-ha field of 60 votive mini-stupas (1–2 m) over megalithic urn burials plus Tamil-Brahmi settlement (300 BCE).
🇳🇬 Nigeria · Ancient village
Kanem-Bornu to Kano (13th–18th c.) · Kanuri / Hausa
Paired frontier hills with 3 km refuge walls and indigo pits (50).
🇺🇸 United States · Ancient village
Pueblo II–III · Ancestral Puebloan / Chacoan
Greatest great house of Chaco: D-shaped 800-room complex with 32 kivas, planned in stages 850–1150 CE, aligned to cardinal directions and Chacoan road system radiating 60 km.
🇨🇳 China · Ancient village
Neolithic Shuangdun (7300–5600 BCE) · Shuangdun culture (Huai River painted pottery, carved symbols)
Shuangdun is Shuangdun culture's type site (7300–5600 BCE) on the Huai River — 10-ha village with stamped pottery with 600+ carved symbols (proto-writing, 7300 BCE).
🇺🇿 Uzbekistan · Ancient village
Sogdian–Kangju (200 BCE–300 CE) · Kangju–Sarmatian to Sogdian (Orlat plaques)
Orlat is the Sarmatian–Kangju cemetery with famed Orlat bone plaques — carved battle and hunting scenes linking Sogdiana to Steppe nomads, 4 kurgans (8 m high).
🇺🇸 United States · Archaeological wonder
Pueblo III 1200–1300 CE · Ancestral Puebloan
Six Pueblo tower villages 1200–1300 CE, Square Tower.
🇺🇸 United States · Earthwork
Pee Dee Mississippian 1150–1400 CE · Pee Dee culture
Pee Dee Mississippian platform mound 1150–1400 CE.
🇺🇸 United States · Earthwork
Mississippian 1000–1350 CE · Mississippian (Wickliffe phase)
Eight-mound Mississippian town 1000–1350 CE.
