Archaeology
New Stuff! 
The most recently added Archaeology resources.
Narrow Your Search
Archaeology.Site (97)
Associations_Organizations (0)
Career (0)
Featured.Resource (0)
Field.School (0)
Grant.Resources (0)
Reference (1)
Style.Guide (0)
Resource Types
Blog (0)
Book (0)
Database (0)
eBook (0)
eDocument (0)
eJournals (0)
Mailing.List (0)
www (97)
97 Bookmarks Found with These Tags:
www [X]
Archaeology.Site [X]
Abu Simbel - Egypt State Information Service
Not only are the two temples at Abu Simbel among the most magnificent monuments in the world but their removal and reconstruction was an historic event in itself. When the temples (280 km from Aswan) were threatened by submersion in Lake Nasser, due to the construction of the High Dam, the Egyptian Government secured the support of UNESCO and launched a world wide appeal.
Abusir - Czech Institute of Egyptology
Abusir, one of the large cemeteries of the Old Kingdom Kings, the famous pyramid builders, is located approximately 30 km to the south of Cairo, on the western bank of the Nile at the very edge of the desert. To the east, the site is delimited by the fertile Nile valley, which swarms with life, to the west by the Libyan Desert which has since antiquity been a symbol of death and forgetfulness, the realm of the dead. The sharp transition between these two extremes is a kind of gate, a link between the world of the living and that of the dead. And precisely here, at this transitory site, Egyptian cemeteries were founded.
The monuments of the Acropolis have withstood the ravages of past centuries, both of ancient times and those of the Middle Ages. Until the 17th century, foreign travellers visiting the monuments depicted the classical buildings as being intact. This remained the case until the middle of the same century, when the Propylaia was blown up while being used as a gunpowder store. Thirty years later, the Ottoman occupiers dismantled the neighbouring Temple of Athena Nike to use its materials to strengthen the fortification of the Acropolis. Today, the new Acropolis Museum has a total area of 25,000 square meters, with exhibition space of over 14,000 square meters, ten times more than that of the old museum on the Hill of the Acropolis. The new Museum offers all the amenities expected in an international museum of the 21st century.
Aksum - UNESCO World Heritage Centre
The ruins of the ancient city of Aksum are found close to Ethiopia's northern border. They mark the location of the heart of ancient Ethiopia, when the Kingdom of Aksum was the most powerful state between the Eastern Roman Empire and Persia. The massive ruins, dating from between the 1st and the 13th century A.D., include monolithic obelisks, giant stelae, royal tombs and the ruins of ancient castles. Long after its political decline in the 10th century, Ethiopian emperors continued to be crowned in Aksum.
Ancient Indus Valley and the British Raj in India and Pakistan
Glimpses of South Asia before 1947 1,169 illustrated pages by the world's leading Ancient Indus Civilization scholars 774 photographs, postcards, lithographs, engravings, and old film of India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka before 1947
Roman city in southeastern France. Site includes a virtual museum and tours.
The American School of Classical Studies has been excavating in the area of the Athenian Agora since 1931, bringing to light the history of the area over a period of 5000 years. Finds range from scattered pieces of pottery of the late Neolithic period (ca. 3000 BC) to the contents of 19th and early 20th century basements. The Agora of the 5th and 4th centuries BC has been the main focus of attention. Scholars have identified the often scanty material remains on the basis of ancient references to the Agora as the center of civic activity of ancient Athens. Public documents inscribed on stone, weight and measure standards, and jurors' identification tickets and ballots reflect the administrative nature of the site, while traces of private dwellings in the area immediately bordering the open square, with their household pottery and other small finds, throw light on the everyday lives of Athenian citizens.
Aztec Ruins National Monument (U.S. National Park Service)
Follow ancient passageways to a distant time. Explore West Ruin, a center of ancestral Pueblo society that once housed over 500 masonry rooms. Look up and see original timbers holding up the roof. Search for the fingerprints of ancient workers in the stucco walls. Listen for an echo of ritual drums in the reconstructed “Great Kiva.” Adventure into the past.
Bandelier National Monument (U.S. National Park Service)
Bandelier has a long human history and links to the modern Pueblos. Traditions which began in the distant past are still practiced today. At Bandelier, evidence of the Ancestral Pueblo people can be found in the dwellings, artifacts, and continuing culture of the modern pueblos. Early Spanish settlers, the Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC), and the National Park Service also left their mark on the local landscape.
The importance of Blackwater Draw was first recognized in 1929 by Ridgely Whiteman of Clovis, New Mexico. The Blackwater Locality No. 1 Site (located within Blackwater Draw near Portales, New Mexico) is one of the most well known and significant sites in North American archaeology. Early investigations at Blackwater Draw recovered evidence of a human occupation in association with Late Pleistocene fauna, including Columbian mammoth, camel, horse, bison, sabertooth cat and dire wolf.
According to archaeological finds, the city of Cahokia was inhabited from about A.D. 700 to 1400. At its peak, from A.D. 1050 to 1200, the city covered nearly six square miles and 10,000 to 20,000 people lived here. Over 120 mounds were built over time, and most of the mounds were enlarged several times. Houses were arranged in rows and around open plazas, and vast agricultural fields lay outside the city. The site is named for the Cahokia subtribe of the Illiniwek (or Illinois tribe, a loose confederacy of related peoples), who moved into the area in the 1600s. They were living nearby when the French arrived about 1699. Sometime in the mid-1800s, local historians suggested the site be called "Cahokia" to honor these later arrivals. Archaeological investigations and scientific tests, mostly since the 1920s and especially since the 1960s, have provided what is known of the once-thriving community.
Canyon de Chelly National Monument (U.S. National Park Service)
Reflecting one of the longest continuously inhabited landscapes of North America, the cultural resources of Canyon de Chelly include distinctive architecture, artifacts, and rock imagery while exhibiting remarkable preservation integrity that provides outstanding opportunities for study and contemplation. Canyon de Chelly also sustains a living community of Navajo people, who are connected to a landscape of great historical and spiritual significance. Canyon de Chelly is unique among National Park service units, as it is comprised entirely of Navajo Tribal Trust Land that remains home to the canyon community. NPS works in partnership with the Navajo Nation to manage park resources and sustain the living Navajo community.
The Fremont people lived throughout Utah and adjacent areas of Idaho, Colorado and Nevada from 700 to 1300 AD. The culture was named for the Fremont River and its valley in which many of the first Fremont sites were discovered. The Fremont were a Puebloid group who had strong cultural affiliations with their better-known contemporaries, the Anasazi. While the Anasazi built cliff dwellings, the Fremont often lived in pit houses (dug into the ground and covered with a brush roof), wickiups (brush and log huts) and natural rockshelters. Their social structure was composed of small, loosely organized bands consisting of several families. They were closely tied to nature and were flexible, diverse and adaptive -- often making changes in their lifeways as social or environmental changes occured.
Carthage was founded as a Phoenician colony near modern Tunis. After the fall of its mother-city Tyre in 575, Carthage became the leader of the Phoenician colonies in the west and founded an informal but powerful empire, which is known for its almost perennial struggle against the Greeks of Sicily and the Romans. In the First Punic War (264-241; the greatest war in Antiquity), the Carthaginians lost Sicily to the Romans, and although their general Hannibal Barca tried to reverse the situation in a Second Punic War, the decline had already started. The Romans sacked Carthage in 146 after a Third Punic War, but later, they refounded the city, which again became prosperous.
Casa Grande Ruins National Monument (U.S. National Park Service)
Casa Grande Ruins National Monument preserves an ancient Hohokam farming community and "Great House." Created as the nation’s first archeological reserve in 1892, the site was declared a National Monument in 1918 “in order that better provision may be made for the protection, preservation and care of the ruins and the ancient buildings and other objects of prehistoric interest thereon.”
Chaco Culture preserves a very special chapter in human history and is comprised of several sites - Chaco Culture National Historical Park, Aztec Ruins National Monument and five units administered by the Bureau of Land Management: Twin Angels, Casamero, Kin Nizhoni, Pierre's Site, and Halfway House. Between AD 850 and 1250, Chaco Canyon was a major center of ancestral Puebloan culture. Many diverse clans and peoples helped to create a ceremonial, trade, and administrative center whose architecture, social organization and community life was unlike anything before or since.
Chaco Culture National Historical Park
Chaco Canyon was an important Anasazi (ancient Native American) cultural center from about 900 through 1130 AD. About 30 ancient masonry buildings, containing hundreds of rooms each, attest to Chaco's importance. Some structures are thought to serve as astronomical observatories or calendars. Archaeologists discovered jewelry made from Mexican and Californian materials in ancient trash heaps. Large well-constructed roadways thought to be built for pilgrims, subjects, or traders, lead from sites 50 miles away to the center of Chaco Canyon. In a very real sense, all roads lead to Chaco.
Chaco Culture National Historical Park (U.S. National Park Service)
Chaco Canyon was a major center of Puebloan culture between AD 850 and 1250. The Chacoan sites are part of the homeland of Pueblo Indian peoples of New Mexico, the Hopi Indians of Arizona, and the Navajo Indians of the Southwest.
Chasseur de la Préhistoire. L'Homme de Tautavel il y a 450 000 ans.
The Arago cave (or "Caune", as it is also called) is one of the largest karstic caves in the southern Corbières region. The cave is located high up, overlooking the Tautavel Valley, and offering an unparalleled view of the surroundings. This observation post must have been ideal for prehistoric hunters, who could thus watch the movements of game. In addition, the Verdouble, flowing at the foot of the cliff, was a watering place where animals came to drink - thus offering an obvious advantage to the people of Tautavel. Near the former entrance to the cave, a path provided easy access to another hunting area: the plateau, located above the cave.
The point of this web site is to introduce you to the site of Chavín de Huántar through virtual reality and a variety of photographs integrated within that experience, and help you ponder some of the big questions that archaeologists face with such data. Chavín de Huántar is located in Peru, 250 km to the north of Lima, and has long been a site of public interest and archaeological inquiry.
Chichen-Itza - UNESCO World Heritage Centre
This sacred site was one of the greatest Mayan centres of the Yucatán peninsula. Throughout its nearly 1,000-year history, different peoples have left their mark on the city. The Maya and Toltec vision of the world and the universe is revealed in their stone monuments and artistic works. The fusion of Mayan construction techniques with new elements from central Mexico make Chichen-Itza one of the most important examples of the Mayan-Toltec civilization in Yucatán. Several buildings have survived, such as the Warriors’ Temple, El Castillo and the circular observatory known as El Caracol.
Colonial Williamsburg Official Site
The Department of Archaeological Research conducts original research on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century colonial archaeology and material culture, including but not limited to studies of urbanization, community development, and zooarchaeological method. The Department is involved in extensive public education, historic preservation activities, archaeological excavations in support of museum-related or other programs, and inter-disciplinary grant-supported studies, including major multi-year assessments of Jamestown Island and Yorktown in cooperation with the National Park Service.
Welcome to PAPAC, the Proyecto Arqueologico para la Planificacion de la Antigua Copan, or in English "The Copan Urban Planning Project." We operate in cooperation with the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History and are funded by the Colgate University Research Council, Colgate University Department of Sociology and Anthropology, and the Committee for Research and Exploration at the National Geographic Society.
Since 1988 a research team from the Mediterranean Section of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania has been involved in making a computerized archit ectural and topographical survey of the Roman colony of Corinth. Known as the Corinth Computer Project, the field work has been carried out under the auspices of the Corinth Excavations of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Dr. Charles K. Williams II, Director. The original objectives were to study the nature of the city planning process during the Roman period at Corinth; to gain a more precise idea of the order of accuracy of the Roman surveyor; and to create a highly accurate computer generated map of the ancient city whereby one could discriminate between and study the successive chronological phases of the city's development.
Crow Canyon Archaeological Center
The Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, located in southwestern Colorado, is dedicated to understanding, teaching, and preserving the rich history of the ancestral Pueblo Indians (also called the Anasazi) who inhabited the canyons and mesas of the Mesa Verde region more than 700 years ago. The area has one of the densest concentrations of well-preserved archaeological sites in the world, attracting the interest of archaeologists, and capturing the imagination of the public, for well over 100 years.
Crystal River Archaeological State Park » Florida State Parks
A National Historic Landmark, this 61-acre, pre-Columbian, Native American site has burial mounds, temple/platform mounds, a plaza area, and a substantial midden. The six-mound complex is one of the longest continuously occupied sites in Florida. For 1,600 years the site served as an imposing ceremonial center for Native Americans. People traveled to the complex from great distances to bury their dead and conduct trade. It is estimated that as many as 7,500 Native Americans may have visited the complex every year.
The city of Cusco, the ancient capital of the Incan Empire, was placed on the World Cultural Heritage List by UNESCO in 1983, and is without a doubt one of the most important destinations in Peru. There are Incan buildings waiting for you to discover them among its cobble-stoned streets, ones like the Koricancha and the palace of Inca Roca as well as Andean Baroque structures from the Colonial Period like the Cathedral and the Church of the Company of Christ. In addition, you can visit the picturesque neighborhood of San Blas where the best artisans in the department have set up their workshops. This magical city also has an exciting nightlife with cafes, restaurants, and bars for all tastes. Just ten minutes away from the city, there are the massive walls of the Sacsayhuamán fortress, and a few kilometers from there, you find the archeological sites of Qenko, Pukapukara, and Tambomachay, Incan buildings constructed completely with stone.
Results of excavations at this site formed the basis for definition of a long-lived "Desert Culture" which existed in the Great Basin area. Earliest cave stratus (c. 9500-9000 BC) is characterized by crude chipped stone artifacts; Zone II (c.8000-7000 BC) by milling stones, basketry, and notched projectile points characteristic of the Desert Culture; and Zones III, IV, and V (c. 7000 BC-500 AD) by materials showing an elaboration of the same culture.
Dickson Mounds Museum, Lewistown
The Dickson Mounds Museum, a branch of the Illinois State Museum and a National Historic Site, is one of the major on-site archaeological museums in the United States. It offers a unique opportunity to explore the world of the American Indian in an awe inspiring journey through 12,000 years of human experience in the Illinois River Valley.
From 1997 to 2003 the UCLA Cultural Virtual Reality Laboratory (CVR Lab) created a digital model of the Roman Forum as it appeared in late antiquity. The notional date of the model is June 21, 400 A.D. From 2002 to 2005, with generous support from the National Science Foundation, the CVRLab was able to create this Web site about the digital Forum model. The purposes of this site are to use the Internet to permit free use and easy viewing of the digital model by people all over the world; to provide documentation for the archaeological evidence and theories utilized to create the model; and to offer basic information about the individual features comprising the digital model so that their history and cultural context can be readily understood.
Neolithic lakeside settlements are documented and studied from the mid 19th century primarily at the Alpine region. Many excavation programs have been conducted ever since in Germany, France, Switzerland, etc. Though it is certain that Greek lakes also provided an advantageous environment for Neolithic populations to settle and the existence of such settlements is documented in several lakes of Northern and Central Greece, Dispilio is the first one being excavated.
El Mirador - Global Heritage Fund
Mirador Archaeological and Wildlife Preserve is a proposed 525,100 acre protected area located in the heart of the Maya Biosphere in northern Guatemala. Mirador is home to the earliest and largest Preclassic Maya archeological sites in Mesoamerica, including the largest pyramid in the world- La Danta. Experts describe the Mirador as the Cradle of Maya Civilization. According to the World Wildlife Fund, the Maya Biosphere has lost 70% of its forests in the last ten years. Establishment of the Mirador Archaeological and Wildlife Preserve is our last chance to protect the last remaining forests of the Maya Biosphere from total environmental catastrophe (see cover showing 2000-2005 fires in red).
Emerald Mound: Ancient Architects of the Mississippi
Emerald Mound, one of the largest ceremonial mounds in the United States, is a flat-topped earthen structure that rises 35 feet high on eight acres along the Natchez Trace Parkway. Given to the National Park Service in 19s50, in 1989 it became a National Historic Landmark. At its zenith, Emerald likely hosted large religious and civic rituals. On either end of the platform are secondary flat-topped mounds, probably the bases of a temple and residence of a priest or ruler. Early drawings suggest that three smaller mounds flanked the sides. Emerald was built and occupied between 1250 and 1600 AD by the ancestors of the Natchez people.
Few, if any, sites can compare with this bison killing and processing area in the contributions it has made to the advance of knowledge about prehistoric humans in the Western Hemisphere. Dating to about 8285 B.C., it is the type site of the Folsom Culture. In 1926, scientists made the dramatic find of flint spear points embedded in the ribs of an extinct species of bison, confirming what had previously been only suspected regarding the early advent of humans in America.
The Old Kingdom Giza Necropolis (dating from about 2500 BCE) is the site of thousands of tombs, temples, and ancient artifacts. With this Web site the Giza Archives Project staff seeks to provide a comprehensive online resource for scholarly research on Giza.
During the Paleo-Indian to Early Archaic Periods (12,000-6,000 BC), prehistoric Indian populations came here to exploit the lithic resources of the area to manufacture projectile points and stone tools; these activities created stratified cultural deposits as much as four feet in depth. This site has played a significant role in the development of archeological method and theory, by advancing knowledge and understanding of the sequential development of prehistoric cultures in the eastern United States, particularly with regard to the earliest periods of human occupation.
Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump Interpretive Centre, Alberta
Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump is known around the world as a remarkable testimony of prehistoric life. Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump bears witness to a custom practiced by native people of the North American plains for nearly 6000 years. Thanks to their excellent understanding of topography and of bison behavior, they killed bison by chasing them over a precipice and subsequently carving up the carcasses in the camp below. In 1981, the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) designated the jump as a World Heritage Site placing it among other world attractions such as the Egyptian pyramids, Stonehenge and the Galapagos Islands. For more information, consult www.unesco.org
Hopeton Earthworks and Hopewell Culture
Although the Hopewell mounds and earthworks of Ross County, Ohio have been well known to the scientific community for more than 150 years, many basic questions have yet to be answered about the sites, and about the people and culture who built them. Early archeological research focused on mounds and mortuary behavior (e.g., Squier and Davis 1848; Thomas 1894; Mills 1922; Moorehead 1922) and yielded a great deal of information about the artistic and ritual aspects of Hopewell life.
Site 33Ro27, Hopewell Mound Group, is one of the most extensively excavated and surveyed Hopewellian earthwork and mound complexes in Ohio. All of the site was privately owned by a number of families until October 1980, when the Archaeological Conservancy purchased most of the mounds and earthworks. The National Park Service purchased the Conservancy’s holdings in 1997 and recently acquired the rest of the earthwork (except for the southern edge) and part of the northern embankment. These areas are now managed by Hopewell Culture National Historical Park. The remainder of the earthwork and mounds (the southern edge of the embankment and the eastern half of the northern embankment, along with the mounds just east of the eastern edge of this part of the embankment) are still privately owned.
The prehistoric temple mound, located on the museum grounds, represents one of the most outstanding artifacts left by the early inhabitants of this community. Built as a ceremonial and political center by the Mound Builder Culture between 800-1400AD, this mound is the largest on salt water and possibly the largest prehistoric earthwork on the Gulf Coast. The Fort Walton Temple Mound stands 17 feet tall and measures 223 feet across its base. An estimated 500,000 basket loads of earth were used to create this earthen structure. In 1964 the Temple Mound was designated a National Historic Landmark and is listed on the National Historic Register.
The OSU Excavations at Isthmia By permission of the Greek Ministry of Culture and with a permit through the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, The Ohio State University conducts a program of archaeological research, education, and publication at the Sanctuary of Poseidon at Isthmia. Isthmia was one of the four great Panhellenic sanctuaries, active from the Archaic period through the end of Antiquity, with a rich period of medieval use as well.
Excavation since 1994 has uncovered hundreds of thousands of artifacts dating to the first half of the 17th century. Nearly half of the objects date to the first years of English settlement (1607-1610). The site of James Fort was not washed into the river as most people believed for the past 200 years. We have uncovered over 250 feet of two palisade wall lines, the east cannon projection (bulwark), three filled in cellars, and a building, all part of the triangular James Fort. Also a palisade wall line and a large building were found attached to the main fort to the east.
Kimmswick - Mastodon State Historic Site
Mastodon State Historic Site contains an important archaeological and paleontological site - the Kimmswick Bone Bed, where scientists discovered the first solid evidence of the coexistence of humans and the American mastodon in eastern North America. At the end of the ice age that occurred from 35,000 to 10,000 years ago, the glaciers to the north were slowly melting as the earth warmed. Animals such as giant ground sloths, peccaries, and hairy, elephantlike mastodons roamed the Midwest. Paleontologists theorize that the area was once swampy and contained mineral springs. Animals that came to the springs may have become trapped in the mud, which helped preserve their bones. Early American Indians also had reached present-day Missouri by at least 12,000 years ago. For a brief period at the end of the Pleistocene epoch, the lives of humans and mastodons intertwined.
L'Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site of Canada
The reconstructions of three Norse buildings are the focal point of this archaeological site, the earliest known European settlement in the New World. The archaeological remains at the site were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1978. Exhibits highlight the Viking lifestyle, artifacts, and the archaeological discovery of the site. Visitors can also explore the hiking trails to nearby bays and lakes.
La Venta | The Metropolitan Museum of Art
La Venta, a small island in the coastal wetlands of the Gulf of Mexico, had a rich array of agricultural and marine resources upon which to build a civilization. Recent excavations have established that small villages in the immediate area were growing maize as early as 1750 B.C., but the site reached its maximum size and importance from 1000 to 500 B.C. It was apparently abandoned by 400 B.C. First explored in 1925, La Venta has provided some of the most important archaeological finds from ancient Mesoamerica.
Laetoli Hominid Trackway (Conservation at the Getty)
Laetoli is a hominid and faunal fossil trackway site located in northern Tanzania. One of its trackways records unique evidence of bipedalism in hominids 3.6 million years ago. Dr. Mary Leakey originally excavated the site during 1978-1979. The Leakey team recorded the footprints using various techniques, and then reburied the trackway under soil, sand, and lava boulders.
The only extensive Folsom campsite yet known, providing a picture of the life of the Early Hunters (9000-3000 BC). The site is not open to the public, but information is available at www.ci.fort-collins.co.us.
Here on June 25, 1876, a large force made up mostly of Sioux and Southern Cheyenne warriors under Sitting Bull, Gall, and Crazy Horse overwhelmed Lt. Col. George A. Custer’s 7th Cavalry in one of the most complete defeats in American military history. Custer and approximately 210 men were slain in the famous "Custer’s Last Stand." Four miles away, up the Little Bighorn, along the bluffs overlooking the river, Maj. Marcus A. Reno and the rest of the regiment remained for two days until help arrived. Reno lost about 70 soldiers and Crow guides. The Indian victory was of short duration. By the spring of 1877, most of the Sioux and Cheyenne, including Crazy Horse, facing starvation and constant military pressure, finally surrendered and accepted reservation confinement. The National Park Service operates the site.
Lowry Pueblo: Archaeology in Southwest Colorado
Lowry Pueblo had a total of about 40 rooms and 8 kivas at its peak in the early 11th century, and was home to approximately 100 people. The pueblo was arranged in a roughly rectangular block, with some portions reaching as high as three stories. A great kiva, constructed outside the eastern limits of the village, is nearly 50 feet in diameter.
Machu Picchu - UNESCO World Heritage Centre
Machu Picchu stands 2,430 m above sea-level, in the middle of a tropical mountain forest, in an extraordinarily beautiful setting. It was probably the most amazing urban creation of the Inca Empire at its height; its giant walls, terraces and ramps seem as if they have been cut naturally in the continuous rock escarpments. The natural setting, on the eastern slopes of the Andes, encompasses the upper Amazon basin with its rich diversity of flora and fauna.
Mammoth Cave National Park (U.S. National Park Service)
Mammoth Cave National Park preserves the cave system and a part of the Green River valley and hilly country of south central Kentucky. This is the world's longest cave system, with more than 365 miles explored. Early guide Stephen Bishop called the cave a "grand, gloomy and peculiar place," but its vast chambers and complex labyrinths have earned its name: Mammoth.
Mammoth Cave National Park (U.S. National Park Service)
Mammoth Cave National Park preserves the cave system and a part of the Green River valley and hilly country of south central Kentucky. This is the world's longest cave system, with more than 365 miles explored. Early guide Stephen Bishop called the cave a "grand, gloomy and peculiar place," but its vast chambers and complex labyrinths have earned its name: Mammoth
The Marksville culture, a southeastern variant of the Hopewell culture centered in Ohio and Illinois, was characterized by elaborate mortuary ceremonialism, the construction of conical burial mounds, complex trade networks, decorative pottery, and the importation of certain raw materials. It is also possible that agriculture of a limited nature, such as the horticulture of native plants, had begun by this time.
Masada - UNESCO World Heritage Centre
Masada is a rugged natural fortress, of majestic beauty, in the Judaean Desert overlooking the Dead Sea. It is a symbol of the ancient kingdom of Israel, its violent destruction and the last stand of Jewish patriots in the face of the Roman army, in 73 A.D. It was built as a palace complex, in the classic style of the early Roman Empire, by Herod the Great, King of Judaea, (reigned 37 – 4 B.C.). The camps, fortifications and attack ramp that encircle the monument constitute the most complete Roman siege works surviving to the present day.
Meadowcroft - Heinz History Center
Meadowcroft Rockshelter, the oldest site of human habitation in North America, provides a unique glimpse into the lives of prehistoric hunters and gathers. This National History Landmark, located in Avella, Washington County, Pa., features a massive, 16,000-year-old rock overhang used by our earliest ancestors for shelter.
Meadowcroft Rock Shelter and Museum of Rural Life
The new enclosure on the 16,000 year old Rockshelter, the earliest site of human habitation in North America will help preserve the world-renowned archaeological excavation site for future generations. With renovations now completed, visitors can see evidence of tools and campfires made by some of the first Americans thousands of years ago. The new observation deck at the Rockshelter will allow families and large groups to explore the oldest and deepest parts of the National Historic Landmark with trained, on-site interpreters who will explain what life was like for our earliest ancestors. The Rockshelter was officially open to the public beginning May 10th, 2008.
Mesa Verde National Park (U.S. National Park Service)
Mesa Verde, Spanish for green table, offers a spectacular look into the lives of the Ancestral Pueblo people who made it their home for over 700 years, from A.D. 600 to A.D. 1300. Today, the park protects over 4,000 known archeological sites, including 600 cliff dwellings. These sites are some of the most notable and best preserved in the United States.
Greek archaeology sites cataloged and viewable with Quick Time movies.
A visit to Mission San Luis transports you back in time. Your destination is a community where Apalachee Indians and newcomers from Spain live in close proximity drawn together by religion as well as military and economic purpose.
Mohenjo-daro the Ancient Indus Valley City in Photographs
Mohenjo Daro, or "Mound of the Dead" is an ancient Indus Valley Civilization city that flourished between 2600 and 1900 BCE. It was one of the first world and ancient Indian cities. The site was discovered in the 1920s and lies in Pakistan's Sindh province. Only a handful of archaeologists have excavated here, described in the introduction and illustrated essay Mohenjodaro: An Ancient Indus Valley Metropolis. These 103 indexed images were taken over 30 years. Most have not been published before. These images can also be seen on on ImageofAsia.com where they can be commented on, emailed, downloaded and much more. You can even run them as a slideshow on your iGoogle homepage. We also have a Facebook Page.
Monte Albán | The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Exploiting the prime agricultural land around the rivers that form the three main arms of the Valley of Oaxaca, the Zapotec residents of San José Mogote constructed the first permanent structures dedicated to public rituals in about 600 B.C., when a slab carved with a reclining figure—almost certainly a slain captive—and a calendrical glyph ("1 Earthquake") was set in the corridor of one of the buildings. It is one of the earliest examples of writing in Mesoamerica.
Montezuma Castle National Monument (U.S. National Park Service)
Gaze through the windows of the past into one of the best preserved cliff dwellings in North America. This 20 room high-rise apartment, nestled into a towering limestone cliff, tells a 1,000 year-old story of ingenuity and survival in an unforgiving desert landscape. Marveling at this enduring legacy of the Sinagua culture reveals a people surprisingly similar to ourselves.
Moundville Archaelogical Museum - An Archaelogical Sketch of Moundville
The Moundville site, occupied from around A.D. 1000 until A.D. 1450, is a large settlement of Mississippian culture on the Black Warrior River in central Alabama. At the time of Moundville's heaviest residential population, the community took the form of a three hundred-acre village built on a bluff overlooking the river.
Murray Springs Clovis Site - San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area, Arizona
Murray Springs is a significant archeology site that contains an undisturbed stratigraphic record of the past 40,000 years. Excavations were conducted by the University of Arizona from 1966 to 1971 under the direction of Dr. Vance Haynes and funded by the National Geographic Society.
Naco, Arizona, Archaeology on the Border
The Naco Port of Entry (POE) is located in southern Cochise County, approximately six miles south of Bisbee, 35 miles west of Douglas, and directly across the border from Naco, Sonora, Mexico. The present population of the unincorporated town of Naco, Arizona, is about 700.
Nakbe was first reported in 1930 by an aerial expedition from the University of Pennsylvania but was not visited by any scholars until archeologist Ian Graham located and mapped a portion of the site in 1962. Graham called it Nakbe, which means "by the road" in Yucatec Maya, a fitting name since a major ancient cause way can be observed extending across the bajo from El Mirador toward the site. My exploratory visit, in 1987, was to expand on my research at El Mirador, then the earliest-known Maya urban settlement. Two years later, in February 1989, a joint expedition sponsored by the Guatemalan Institute of Anthropology and History and the University of California at Los Angeles began systematic excavation and map ping of the site center, using 125 mules to transport supplies and equipment.
The site of Namu contains an archaeological record that spans nearly 10,000 years from the earliest times into the historic period. An overview of the history and prehistory of Namu are presented in this pictoral gallery by the Department of Archaeology at Simon Fraser University, with thanks to Dr. Roy Carlson.
The UC Berkeley Digital Nineveh Archives was initiated in December 2005, and has been made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities initiative, Recovering Iraq's Past. In December 2007 additional support was provided by the British Universities Iraq Consortium. The project, directed by David Stronach and Eleanor Wilkinson, began digitizing only the field records from the University of California at Berkeley Expedition to Nineveh 1987, 1989 and 1990. It has grown to accommodate knowledge contributed by other archaeologists past, present and future, in what has the potential to be first comprehensive archaeological reckoning of the history of the site, from the 19th century through to today.
Norton Mounds | Public Museum, Grand Rapids
The Norton Mounds, a property of the Public Museum since 1936, are 13 Hopewell burial mounds near the Grand River a few miles southwest of downtown Grand Rapids in Millennium Park. The largest remaining mound is 15 feet high and 80 feet in diameter. Hopewell is a scientific name given to an ancient civilization that flourished over 2,000 years ago from the Upper Peninsula to the Gulf Coast. The Norton Mounds site, one of the best preserved Hopewellian cemeteries in the country and one of the most important archaeological sites in Michigan, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1965.
Olduvai Gorge - Ngorongoro Conservation Area - UNESCO World Heritage Centre
A large permanent concentration of wild animals can be found in the huge and perfect crater of Ngorongoro. Nearby, the crater of Empakaai, filled by a deep lake, and the active volcano of Oldonyo Lenga can be seen. Excavations carried out in the Olduvai Gorge, not far from there, have resulted in the discovery of one of our more distant ancestors, Homo habilis. Laitoli Site, which also lies within the area, is one of the main localities of early hominid footprints, dating back 3.6 million years.
The Project is a joint venture of the Pre-Columbian Art Research Institute (PARI) and Mexico's Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH). The current excavations at Temple XX are being sponsored by the Center for the History of Ancient American Art and Cultures (CHAAAC), under the directorship of Professor Nikolai Grube at the University of Texas.
Paleopathology of the Crow Creek Massacre site
In the mid-fourteenth century A.D., more than 486 individuals were massacred at the Crow Creek Site, 39BF11, located on the east bank of the Missouri River in South Dakota. In the study of their remains, a search was made for diseases, anomalies, and abnormalities which had affected these people during life and had left an imprint on their bones. Because the villagers had apparently lived and died together in a pre-White contact Initial Contact village and were ancestral to the Arikara, data from the study could provide important information about them, their lifestyle, and also regarding the health status of the aborigines in the pre-Columbian era.
Parkin Archeological State Park & research lab near St. Francis River in E. Ark
Parkin Archeological State Park in eastern Arkansas at Parkin preserves and interprets the Parkin site on the St. Francis River where a 17-acre Mississippi Period American Indian village was located from A.D. 1000 to 1550. A large platform mound on the river bank remains. The site is important for understanding the history and prehistory of northeast Arkansas. There were once many archeological sites similar to Parkin throughout this region, but they did not survive as eastern Arkansas was settled.
Pinson Mounds State Archaeological Park
The largest Middle Woodland Period (ca. 200 B.C.-A.D. 400) archaeological site in the Southeast, Pinson Mounds is located about ten miles south of Jackson on the South Fork of the Forked Deer River. Within an area of approximately four hundred acres, the site includes at least twelve mounds, a geometric earthen enclosure, and associated ritual activity areas. While the site's large size and immense volume of earth fill are very impressive, the presence of five large rectangular platform mounds (ranging in height from 7 to 72 feet) of Middle Woodland age underscores the unique nature of the Pinson Mounds site.
Pinson Mounds State Archaeological Park
Pinson Mounds, one of two state archaeological parks, is a special park, set aside to protect the prehistoric remains found there. Managed by the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation's Division of State Parks, the Pinson Mounds grouping consists of at least 15 earthen mounds, a geometic enclosure, habitation areas and related earthworks in an area that incorporates almost 1,200 acres. Pinson Mounds is a national historic Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Poverty Point is indeed a rare remnant of an exceptional culture. It has been estimated that it took at least five million hours of labor to build the massive earthworks. Considering that the laborers carried this dirt to the site in baskets of about a 50-pound capacity, it is obvious that this was a great communal engineering feat. Dated between 1650 and 700 B.C., this site of more than 400 acres is unique among archaeological sites on this continent. In 1962, Poverty Point was designated a National Historic Landmark by the U.S. Department of the Interior. An interpretive museum, special events, programs and guided tours, highlight activities at the park.
Pueblo Grande Museum and Archaeological Park
Pueblo Grande Museum is located at a 1,500 year-old Hohokam village ruins in modern day Phoenix. For over 70 years the museum has been dedicated to the study and interpretation of the Hohokam culture. On the 102 acre park grounds, visitors explore the ruin of an 800 year-old platform mound possibly used by the Hohokam for ceremonies or as an administrative center. An excavated ballcourt, and to full-scale reproductions of prehistoric Hohokam homes can be viewed along the ruin trail. The site also includes some of the last remaining intact Hohokam irrigation canals.
Russell Cave National Monument (U.S. National Park Service)
For more than 10,000 years, Russell Cave was home to prehistoric peoples. Russell Cave provides clues to the daily lifeways of early North American inhabitants dating from 6500 B.C. to 1650 A.D. The cave shelter archaeological site contains the most complete record of prehistoric cultures in the Southeast.
Samarra is located on the east bank of the middle Tigris in Iraq, 125 km north of Baghdad, Between 836 (221 H) and 892 (279 H) it was the capital of the Abbasid Caliphs. Samarra expanded to an occupied area of 57 km², one of the largest cities of ancient times, whose remains of collapsed pisé and brick walls are still largely visible. Samarra is now one of the largest archaeological sites in the world.
Santa Cruz Island (U.S. National Park Service) - Channel Islands National Park
The island is also rich in cultural history with 9,000 years of Chumash Native American Indian habitation and over 150 years of European exploration and ranching. Santa Cruz Island, known by the Chumash people as “Limuw”(translates to “in the sea”) was home to a dozen villages that housed over 1,000 people. Many of these islanders mined extensive chert deposits for tools and produced “shell-bead money,” used as a major trade item by tribes throughout California. The largest village on the island as well as on the northern Channel Islands, “Swaxil,” occupied the area of Scorpion Ranch at the time of Spanish contact (1542). Large plank canoes, called “tomols,” provided transportation between the islands and mainland. Remnants of their civilization can still be seen in thousands of “shell middens” on the island. Remnants of the ranching era also can be seen throughout the landscape of the island.
Atop a plateau overlooking the Brush Creek Valley, Serpent Mound is the largest and finest serpent effigy in the United States. Nearly a quarter of a mile long, Serpent Mound apparently represents an uncoiling serpent. In the late nineteenth-century Harvard University archaeologist Frederic Ward Putnam excavated Serpent Mound and attributed the creation of the effigy to the builders of the two nearby burial mounds, which he also excavated. We now refer to this culture as the Adena (800 BC-AD 100). A third burial mound at the park and a village site near the effigy's tail belong to the Fort Ancient culture (AD 1000-1550).
Tel Dor (Kh. el-Burj), is a large mound located on Israel's Mediterranean coast, about 30 km south of Haifa. It is identified with D-jr of Egyptian sources, Biblical Dor, and with Dor/Dora of Greek and Roman sources. The documented history of the site begins in the Late Bronze Age (though the town itself was founded in the Middle Bronze Age, c. 2000 BCE), and ends in the Crusader period. The port dominated the fortunes of the town throughout its 3000-odd year history. Dor was successively ruled by Canaanites 'Sea peoples' Israelites Phoenicians Assyrians Persians Greeks Romans Its primary role in all these diverse cultures was that of a commercial entrepot and a gateway between East and West.
Teotihuacan arose as a new religious center in the Mexican Highland, around the time of Christ. Although its incipient period (the first two centuries B.C.) is poorly understood, archaeological data show that the next two centuries (Tzacualli to Miccaotli phases; A.D. 1-200) were characterized by monumental construction, during which Teotihuacan quickly became the largest and most populous urban center in the New World. By this time, the city already appears to have expanded to approximately 20 square km, with about 60,000 to 80,000 inhabitants (Millon 1981:221).
The Eridu Temple ... a reconstruction
In Sumerian literature, dated around 2033B-1988BC, Eridu was located on the sea as found in a cuneiform chronicle of Shulgi, the king of UR. Although there is no sea nearby, it is believed that the city was on the shore of a marsh which occured when the banks of the Euphrates flooded. Also, geologists believe that the sea level in the middle of the forth millennium B.C. could have been three meters higher than it is at present.
The Prehistoric Archaeology of the Aegean
This site contains information about the prehistoric archaeology of the Aegean. Through a series of lessons and illustrations, it traces the cultural evolution of humanity in the Aegean basin from the era of hunting and gathering (Palaeolithic-Mesolithic) through the early village farming stage (Neolithic) and the formative period of Aegean civilization into the age of the great palatial cultures of Minoan Crete and and Mycenaean Greece.
Neandertals lived in Europe between about 150,000 to 30,000 years ago and their archaeological record is best known from different cave and rockshelter sites. One of these is Pech de l'Azé IV in southern France. It was initially test excavated in the 1950s and later in the 1970s by French prehistorians, who established the general sequence of occupations at the site, as well as describing the various types of stone tool assemblages found in the different layers. We decided to return to this site for more extensive excavations for several reasons. These include the fact that the lowest deposits in the sequence contain many hearths, an uncommon finding at a Neandertal site. There is also a very special stone tool assemblage (the Asinipodian) featuring extremely small stone artifacts in one of the layers.
The Sunghir Archaeological Site
The Sunghir archaeological site is situated near of Vladimir city, 192 km from Moscow (56°11" NL and 40°30" EL). The settlement was discovered in 1955. For 16 field seasons (1957-1977) an expedition under supervision of Otto N. Bader revealed 4500 m2 of the site area. Age of the settlement is defined from the disposal of the cultural layer in the so called Bryansk soil, connected with the corresponding interstadial of Valdai Ice age of Late Pleistocene. One of the first radiocarbon dates, obtained from collagen of reindeer bones in Groningen laboratory gives absolute age of 24430+/- 400 years ago (Gro 5446) and from charcoal - 25500+/- 200 years ago (Gro 5425).
Tikal National Park - UNESCO World Heritage Centre
In the heart of the jungle, surrounded by lush vegetation, lies one of the major sites of Mayan civilization, inhabited from the 6th century B.C. to the 10th century A.D. The ceremonial centre contains superb temples and palaces, and public squares accessed by means of ramps. Remains of dwellings are scattered throughout the surrounding countryside.
Tiwanaku Interactive Dig - Revealing Ancient Bolivia
The city of Tiwanaku is located on the southern shore of the famous Lake Titicaca along the border between Bolivia and Peru. During the heyday of this city was between A.D. 500 and 950, religious artifacts from the city spread across the southern Andes, but when the conquering Inka arrived in the mid-fifteenth century, the site had been mysteriously abandoned for half a millennium. Even after its abandonment, Tiwanaku continued to be an important religious site for the local people. It later became incorporated into Inka mythology as the birthplace of mankind as the Inka built their own structures alongside the ruins. Tiwanaku remains an integral locale in the religious lives of Andean people in the turbulent present of modern Bolivia. Although dozens of national and international projects began to unlock Tiwanaku's secrets during the last century, we are only recently beginning to piece together the puzzle behind the origin of this architectural marvel and the people who built it.
Toltec Mounds Archeological State Park near Little Rock
Arkansas's tallest remaining, prehistoric American Indian mounds are preserved at this National Historic Landmark site near Little Rock. The mounds and an earthen embankment are the remains of a large ceremonial and governmental complex that was inhabited here from A.D. 600 to 1050. Managed by Arkansas State Parks in conjunction with the Arkansas Archeological Survey, the Toltec site serves as both a state park and an archeological research station.
UNESCO World Heritage Centre - Official Site
Heritage is our legacy from the past, what we live with today, and what we pass on to future generations. Our cultural and natural heritage are both irreplaceable sources of life and inspiration. Places as unique and diverse as the wilds of East Africa’s Serengeti, the Pyramids of Egypt, the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and the Baroque cathedrals of Latin America make up our world’s heritage. What makes the concept of World Heritage exceptional is its universal application. World Heritage sites belong to all the peoples of the world, irrespective of the territory on which they are located.
Leonard Woolley made many exciting discoveries while excavating the 'Royal tombs' at Ur. He learnt a great deal about how people lived and what they believed by studying the burials. Explore some of the Royal tombs
Ute Mountain Tribal Park: Archaeology in Southwest Colorado
The Park encompasses approximately 125,000 acres around a 25 mile stretch of the Mancos River. Within the park are hundreds of surface sites and cliff dwellings, Ancestral Puebloan petroglyphs, and historic Ute wall paintings and petroglyphs.
Wahkpa Chu'gn Archaeological Site
Nestled in the shadow of the Bear Paw Mountains, on the road to everywhere in north central Montana, WAHKPA CHU'GN (pronounced walk-pa-chew-gun) is the most extensive and best preserved buffalo bone deposit in the northern Great Plains.
Windover Bog People Archaeological Dig - Titusville Florida
When the 3-year-old died, her parents placed her favorite toys in her arms, wrapped her in fabric woven from fibers of native plants, and buried her body in the soft, muck bottom of a small pond. Some 7,000 years later, when a young archaeologist uncovered her tiny remains, the toys--a wooden pestle-shaped object and the carapace of a small turtle--were still cradled in her arms. Most remarkable was the state of preservation of the child's bones and her toys, and the remains of some 167 other individuals and numerous artifacts found in that small pond in Windover Farms subdivision. The pond is about one mile southeast of the intersection of Highway 50 and I-95 and just outside the Titusville city limits where, today, a child's favorite toy may be a model of the space shuttle.
This small, isolated peat deposit contains artifacts and human burials dating to the Early Archaic period. It represents one of the largest collections of human skeletal material from its time period and one of the largest collections of fiber arts yet found at any archeological site in the New World.
Winterville Mounds, named for a nearby community, is the site of a prehistoric ceremonial center built by a Native American civilization that thrived from about A.D. 1000 to 1450. The mounds, part of the Winterville society's religious system, were the site of sacred structures and ceremonies.
