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🇪🇬 Egypt · Rock art
Epipalaeolithic to Neolithic (Holocene humid A, B) · Gilf Kebir Holocene hunter-herders (pre-pastoral)
7,000 BCE Gilf Kebir painted shelters—8,000 hand stencils, 'swimmers' and therianthropic beasts in hyper-arid heart of Sahara.
🇦🇲 Armenia · Rock art
Late Chalcolithic (Areni phase, 4300–3400 BCE) · Areni / Late Chalcolithic South Caucasus (related to Maykop-Leyla Tepe)
Armenian Chalcolithic wine-cave with 3500 BCE shoe, winery and ibex petroglyphs.
🇻🇳 Vietnam · Archaeological wonder
Hoabinhian 10,000–8000 BCE → Son Vi → Sa Huynh 1000 BCE–200 CE → War layer 1965–75 · Hoabinhian → Sa Huynh
Truong Son = Annamite highland caves (Hoabinhian→Sa Huynh, 10 ka–500 CE) on Hai Van crest (task-highlight).
🇬🇷 Greece · Rock art
Upper Paleolithic to Neolithic (c.38,000–3000 BCE) · Paleolithic–Mesolithic Greek and Early Aegean Neolithic
Franchthi Cave (Upper Paleolithic to Final Neolithic c.38,000–3000 BCE) is a vast 30-m wide limestone cavity on the Koilada Bay cliff 10 m above the now-submerged plain, containing a 5-m stratified…
🇵🇸 Palestine · Ancient village
Iron Age to Roman (8th c. BCE–68 CE; peak Hasmonaean–Herodian) · Israelite → Hasmonaean/Essene (Yahad) sect (possibly Sadducean debate) → Roman destruction
Essene terrace settlement feeding 11 cliff caves that yielded 972 Dead Sea Scrolls.
🇻🇳 Vietnam · Ancient village
Pleistocene–Holocene Hoabinhian 11,000–8000 BCE · Hoabinhian (Colani)
Colani's Hoabinhian cave — Xóm Cón pebble chopper rock-shelter at Hòa Bình (11–8 ka, Sumatralith).
🇹🇷 Turkey · Ancient village
Epipalaeolithic to Early Ceramic Neolithic · Central Anatolian Epipalaeolithic → Neolithic
Spring-side rockshelter and village where Epipalaeolithic to PPN aDNA links to Boncuklu and Çatalhöyük.
🇬🇧 United Kingdom · Archaeological wonder
Early Mesolithic (~9000–8500 BCE) · Early Mesolithic British (Maglemosian)
Peat-preserved lake-shore settlement at Lake Flixton where Grahame Clark in 1949–51 uncovered a 12-m timber platform of split birch, 21 red deer antler frontlets drilled for wearing as headdresses,…
🇦🇷 Argentina · Rock art
Early Holocene to late Patagonia (~9300 BCE – 700 CE) · Patagonian hunter-gatherer (Tehuelche ancestors)
Canyon sandstone cave whose walls retain over 800 negative hand stencils made by spraying pigment through bone pipes around hands, interspersed with guanaco hunts, bola weapons and geometric discs.
🇨🇳 China · Archaeological wonder
Warring States to Han (~300 BCE – 100 CE; debated) · Yue / early Han Chinese
Twenty-four enormous man-made siltstone caverns rediscovered in 1992 after 2,000 years of siltation, each a single chamber 10–30 m high hewn with chisels that left uniform parallel tooling covering…
🇧🇷 Brazil · Rock art
Upper Paleolithic to early Holocene (~25,000 BCE – 2000 BCE disputed; art ~9000 BCE onward) · Paleoindian / early Nordeste tradition; Pedra Furada phase
Semiarid caatinga plateau with over 400 painted shelters bearing perhaps 30,000 figures, among the densest and most narrative rock-art landscapes in the Americas.
🇫🇷 France · Rock art
Upper Paleolithic (Solutrean/Magdalenian, ~17,000–15,000 BCE) · Cro-Magnon hunter-gatherer (Magdalenian)
Sealed Upper Paleolithic cave on the Vézère renowned as the 'Sistine Chapel of Prehistory' for about 600 parietal paintings and nearly 1,500 engravings executed with astonishing naturalism.
🇮🇳 India · Rock art
Upper Paleolithic to Medieval (100,000 BCE – 2nd century BCE – 1500 CE) · South Asian hunter-gatherer to early historic
Cluster of about 750 sandstone shelters on the Vindhyan fringe with a layered sequence of paintings spanning Mesolithic hunting scenes to historic horsemen and battle processions.
🇫🇷 France · Rock art
Aurignacian, Upper Paleolithic (~37,000–33,000 BCE) · Aurignacian hunter-gatherer
Sealed Aurignacian cave above the Ardèche gorge containing the earliest known figurative art, with over 430 animal representations including woolly rhinoceros, cave lions, panthers and megaloceros…
🇵🇪 Peru · Rock art
Early Holocene (~9500–7000 BCE) · Andean high-desert hunter-gatherer (Toquepala tradition)
Shallow Andean quebrada cave where Roger Ravines documented polychrome paintings of camelids, deer and corpulent hunters brandishing bows, one of the earliest figurative traditions on the Pacific…
🇲🇳 Mongolia · Rock art
Upper Paleolithic to Mesolithic (19,000–8000 BCE) · Malta-Buret related early Holocene hunter
Sun-facing lower gallery with 15 ka ibex/ostrich ochre and pecked figures 220 m below main cave.
🇦🇲 Armenia · Rock art
Chalcolithic to Medieval (4000 BCE – 1400 CE) · Kura-Araxes to medieval Armenian
South annex with Chalcolithic finger flutings and secondary grape press pit.
🇺🇦 Ukraine · Rock art
Mesolithic to Medieval (9000 BCE – 1200 CE) · Azov steppe pastoral to Nogai Turkic
North end shelters with cart/chariot and Turkic tamga palimpsest.
