🇫🇷 France · Rock art
Cosquer Cave
Gravettian–Solutrean ~27–19 ka BP · Gravettian–Solutrean coastal
Submerged 27 ka painted cave 37 m under Mediterranean with great-auk and hand stencils.
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346 places to sift through. Narrow by kind, country, period or how firmly each one is established — contested and pseudoarchaeological claims are labelled here, never hidden.
🇫🇷 France · Rock art
Gravettian–Solutrean ~27–19 ka BP · Gravettian–Solutrean coastal
Submerged 27 ka painted cave 37 m under Mediterranean with great-auk and hand stencils.
🇪🇬 Egypt · Rock-cut
Old Kingdom to Middle Kingdom (2700–1800 BCE; peak 2300–2100 BCE) · Ancient Egyptian
El-Hawawish is the Old–Middle Kingdom cliff necropolis of Akhmim (Panopolis, 9th nome) on eastern desert edge, 800+ rock-cut tombs 3000–1800 BCE on 1.5 km wadi terrace.
🇬🇧 United Kingdom · Earthwork
Bronze Age to Iron Age (~1500–300 BCE; causeway 1350–1150 BCE) · British Bronze Age (Deverel-Rimbury to Post-Deverel-Rimbury)
A 1-km line of 60,000 oak posts forming a causeway and platform across Flag Fen where Francis Pryor excavated systematic votive deposits: over 300 metalwork items deliberately broken (swords bent,…
🇩🇿 Algeria · Ancient city
Numidian to Byzantine (5th c BCE-7th c CE; peak 2nd-3rd c CE) · Numidian / Roman / Byzantine
Twin theatre city Khamissa.
🇫🇷 France · Rock art
Upper Paleolithic Magdalenian ~14–13 ka BP · Magdalenian hunter-gatherer
Magdalenian Salon Noir cave with 14 ka charcoal bison and ibex deep in the Ariège Pyrenees.
🇮🇱 Israel · Archaeological wonder
Chalcolithic to Iron Age (~4500 BCE – 800 BCE; peak New Kingdom Egyptian 14th–12th century BCE) · Egyptian New Kingdom, Midianite/Edomite and early Arabah nomadic
Three-sided sandstone valley north of Eilat where 10,000 shafts and 1.5 million tonnes of slag mark one of the world's earliest industrial landscapes.
🇧🇴 Bolivia · Archaeological wonder
Tiwanaku to Inca (~500–1532 CE; Inca reef 1400–1532 CE) · Tiwanaku and Inca
At 3,810 m – the world's highest navigable lake – divers from Atahuallpa 2000 and recent Belgian–Bolivian teams mapped an underwater reef off the Khoa beach of the Island of the Sun retaining Inca…
🇱🇾 Libya · Rock art
Middle Stone Age to Neolithic (200,000–6,000 BP) · Homo sapiens MS A/MSA/LSA; Oranian Dabban Capsian
Haua Fteah is a 50-m-wide by 20-m-high karst cave at foot of Jebel Akhdar escarpment, Cyrenaica's deep 14-m stratified sequence 200,000–10,000 BP, spanning Middle Stone Age Upper Palaeolithic…
🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia · Earthwork
Late Neolithic (~5500–3500 BCE) · Neolithic Arabian pastoralist
More than 1,600 elongated rectangular courtyard monuments – Arabic mustatil – stitched across 200,000 km² of Saudi desert between the Nefud and Red Sea, rendered visible only by satellite.
🇬🇧 United Kingdom · Archaeological wonder
Iron Age (~800 BCE – 100 CE; Oakbank 460 BCE – 200 BCE) · Atlantic Scottish Iron Age (Caledonian)
One of 18 Iron Age timber islets in Loch Tay, Oakbank comprises a 30-m oak pile ring with horizontal alder floors still preserved 2 m deep in cold waterlogged peat.
🇿🇦 South Africa · Rock art
Later Stone Age to Colonial ~8000 BP–19th c. · San ( ancestral Bushman) and Khoe
Kimberley andesite engravings with 1,500 eland-rhino figures and living San custodianship.
🇺🇸 United States · Archaeological wonder
Iron Age (1200 BCE–500 CE) · Iron Age
Kiln-Anchorage Gateway Archaeological Complex in Ohio, United States is a Iron Age (1200 BCE–500 CE) archaeological wonder attributed to Iron Age culture.
🇹🇿 Tanzania · Rock art
Late Stone Age to recent (~3000 BCE – 19th century CE; most 1500 BCE onward) · Sandawe hunter-gatherer to Bantu pastoralist, later Warangi
Over 150 shelters scattered across the Kondoa escarpment display stratified painting traditions: early naturalistic eland and human figures with elongated heads (hunter-gatherer), later white…
🇦🇺 Australia · Rock art
Pleistocene to Historic ~50 ka–present · Australian Aboriginal (Ngarluma, Yindjibarndi, Yaburara)
Million-engraving petroglyph province on Pilbara gabbro archipelago, 50 kyr continuous record.
🇮🇳 India · Rock art
Neolithic to Iron Age (~6000 BCE – 1000 BCE; inscriptions to 1st century CE) · South Indian Neolithic to Iron Age; Sangam to Tamil-Brahmi
Natural cleft formed by a 4-m boulder bridging a rift in Ambukuthimala hill reveals Old Kannada petroglyphs: over 400 engravings of ibex-like 'Indus-style' jar, stickmen, Sun Plan wheels and a…
🇸🇩 Sudan · Ancient city
Medieval Christian–Islamic Nubia (500–1317 CE; peak 800–12th c.) · Makuria (Christian Nubia) / Islamic
Old Dongola on Nile opposite Letti is Makuria Christian Nubia's capital 500–1317 CE, 45 ha walled town with colonnaded citadel, palace of Ioannes (11th c.) 28×18 m with frescoes, five churches…
🇮🇳 India · Temple complex
Early Pandya origins 6th c., current Nayak 1623–1655 CE · Hindu (Shavite-Shakti) under Nayak kingdom of Madurai
Sprawling Nayak temple-city with 14 colourful gopurams and musical stone pillars.
🇵🇹 Portugal · Rock art
Upper Paleolithic to Iron Age (~25,000 BCE – 1000 BCE; main 20,000–10,000 BCE) · Solutrean/Magdalenian to Atlantic Iron Age
Largest open-air Paleolithic art complex known, spread over 17 km of the Côa tributary with over 1,000 engraved schist panels bearing thousands of zoomorphs.
🇨🇳 China · Rock-cut
Later Qin to Song (384 – 1279 CE) · Buddhist Hexi to Central Plains transition at Wei River gap
East face stacked 90 caves 142 m hill with 16 m Buddha and plankway tiers.
🇱🇾 Libya · Rock art
Early Holocene to Garamantian (~12,000 BCE – 100 CE) · Saharan hunter-gatherer to Pastoral Neolithic (Kel Essuf, Round Head, Pastoral)
150-km sandstone plateau on the Algerian border preserves thousands of paintings and engravings in styles paralleling nearby Tassili n'Ajjer: giant Kel Essuf headless figures, Round Head masked…
🇨🇳 China · Archaeological wonder
Early Bronze Age (~1900–1500 BCE; Xia to early Shang) · Erlitou ( Xia, early Bronze Age Chinese)
300-ha rammed-earth palace enclosure on the Luo River where 11,000 m² Palace No.1 and a bronze foundry document the transition from Longshan Neolithic to bronze kingship.
🇲🇲 Myanmar · Temple complex
Mon foundation legend 6th c. BCE; major form 14th–18th c. CE · Mon-Burmese Theravada Buddhist
Shwedagon Zedi Daw – 112m gilded stupa encrusted with 60 tonnes of gold leaf and 5,448 diamonds (76-carat crown), enshrining hairs of Gautama and relics of three prior Buddhas.
🇩🇿 Algeria · Archaeological wonder
Roman (300 BCE–500 CE) · Roman
Fort Howe Archaeological Complex in Tassili n'Ajjer, Algeria is a Roman (300 BCE–500 CE) archaeological wonder attributed to Roman culture.
🇹🇷 Turkey · Temple complex
Hecatomnid Classical 380–330 BCE · Carian (Hecatomnid satrapal) Greek-Anatolian hybrid
Carian mountain Zeus sanctuary of Mausolus with double-axe cult and 14 km sacred road.