World map42 sites
World map of archaeological sites
An interactive world map of famous archaeological sites: hominin fossil sites, painted caves, monuments and ancient cities.
- Hominin fossil site
- Cave art
- Monument
- City or settlement
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Site card
Pick a marker on the map to see the site here.
Catalogue42 sites, A to Z
All 42 sites
- MonumentAbu SimbelEgyptAbu Simbel is a pair of rock-cut temples in southern Egypt, built for the pharaoh Ramesses II about 3,200 years ago and moved to higher ground in the 1960s to save them from the rising waters behind the Aswan High Dam.
- Cave artAltamira CaveSpainAltamira is a cave in northern Spain famous for its painted ceiling of bison, made by Upper Palaeolithic people. It was the first cave in the world where Ice Age art was recognised, and for years experts refused to believe it was ancient.
- City or settlementAngkorCambodiaAngkor is the remains of the capital of the Khmer Empire in Cambodia, including the temple of Angkor Wat. From the 9th to the 15th century it was the centre of one of the largest pre-industrial cities in the world.
- Cave artBhimbetka rock sheltersIndiaBhimbetka is a group of rock shelters in central India with paintings made over many thousands of years, from the Stone Age to historic times, and with some of the oldest traces of human life on the Indian subcontinent. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
- MonumentCarnac stonesFranceThe Carnac stones are thousands of standing stones set in long rows in Brittany, France, raised by Neolithic people. They are among the largest collections of megaliths in the world, and some are older than Stonehenge.
- City or settlementÇatalhöyükTurkeyÇatalhöyük is one of the largest early farming towns, in central Turkey, occupied from about 7100 to 5700 BC. Its tightly packed mud-brick houses had no streets and were entered through the roof.
- City or settlementChaco CanyonNew Mexico, United StatesChaco Canyon is a canyon in northwestern New Mexico with large stone buildings, called great houses, built by ancestors of the Pueblo peoples between about 850 and 1150 CE. It was a ceremonial and trading centre linked by roads to many outlying communities.
- Cave artChauvet CaveFranceChauvet Cave in southern France holds some of the oldest known figurative paintings, including lions, rhinoceroses, horses and bears, made around 36,000 years ago. Sealed by a rockfall for thousands of years, it is exceptionally well preserved and closed to the public.
- City or settlementChichen ItzaMexicoChichén Itzá is a large Maya city on the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico, known for its stepped pyramid called El Castillo. It was a major power from about 800 to 1050 CE.
- Cave artCueva de las ManosArgentinaThe Cueva de las Manos, or Cave of the Hands, is a rock shelter in Patagonia, Argentina, with hundreds of hand stencils and painted animals made by hunter-gatherers between about 13,000 and 9,500 years ago.
- Hominin fossil siteDenisova CaveRussiaDenisova Cave is a cave in the Altai Mountains of Siberia where a tiny finger bone revealed the Denisovans in 2010, an extinct group of humans first identified from ancient DNA, not from their shape. It has also yielded Neanderthal remains and the bones of a girl with a Neanderthal mother and a Denisovan father.
- Hominin fossil siteDmanisiGeorgiaDmanisi is a hilltop site in the country of Georgia, with the ruins of a medieval town above deposits about 1.8 million years old. It holds some of the earliest human fossils found outside Africa, including five well-preserved skulls.
- MonumentGiza PyramidsEgyptThe Giza pyramids are a group of pyramids and the Sphinx near Cairo, built about 4,500 years ago as royal tombs and temples. The Great Pyramid of Khufu was the tallest human-made structure in the world for nearly 4,000 years.
- MonumentGobekli TepeTurkeyGöbekli Tepe is a hilltop in southeastern Turkey with circles of carved stone pillars built about 11,000 years ago, before farming or pottery, by people who were still hunters and gatherers. It is one of the oldest known monumental sites in the world.
- City or settlementGreat ZimbabweZimbabweGreat Zimbabwe is the stone ruins of a medieval African city in Zimbabwe, with high granite walls built without mortar. It was the centre of a wealthy trading state between about 1100 and 1450 CE, and gave the modern country its name.
- Hominin fossil siteHadarEthiopiaHadar is a hot, dry fossil area in the Afar region of Ethiopia. It is where the partial skeleton nicknamed Lucy, about 3.2 million years old, was found in 1974, along with the "First Family" of Australopithecus afarensis and many other early human fossils.
- Hominin fossil siteJebel IrhoudMoroccoJebel Irhoud is a former mine in Morocco whose fossils, about 315,000 years old, are the oldest known remains of Homo sapiens. They show that our species began to appear across Africa far earlier than was thought.
- City or settlementJericho (Tell es-Sultan)West Bank, PalestineJericho is a mound beside the modern West Bank town of the same name, with some of the oldest known settlement remains in the world, including a stone tower from about 10,000 years ago. People lived at the spring there for over 10,000 years.
- Hominin fossil siteKoobi ForaKenyaKoobi Fora is a fossil-rich stretch of the east shore of Lake Turkana in northern Kenya. Since 1968 it has yielded hundreds of hominin fossils, mostly from about 2 to 1.4 million years ago, when early Homo and Paranthropus boisei lived side by side, along with some of the oldest stone tools and butchered bones.
- Hominin fossil siteLaetoliTanzaniaLaetoli is a site in northern Tanzania where a trail of footprints left in volcanic ash about 3.66 million years ago shows early human relatives walking upright. It also yielded the jaw that defines Australopithecus afarensis.
- Hominin fossil siteLake MungoAustraliaLake Mungo is a dry lake bed in New South Wales, Australia, where the remains of people from about 40,000 years ago were found, including the oldest known cremation and a ritual burial. It lies within the Willandra Lakes World Heritage Area and is a place of deep importance to Aboriginal people.
- Cave artLascauxFranceLascaux is a cave in the Dordogne region of southwestern France with large paintings of horses, aurochs and deer, made by Ice Age people roughly 17,000 to 21,000 years ago. The original cave has been closed to visitors since 1963 to protect it, and people see replicas.
- Hominin fossil siteLiang BuaIndonesiaLiang Bua is a limestone cave on the island of Flores, Indonesia, where the small human species Homo floresiensis, nicknamed the Hobbit, was discovered in 2003. The adult woman found there stood only about a metre tall.
- City or settlementMachu PicchuPeruMachu Picchu is an Inca mountain settlement in the Andes of Peru, built in the 1400s as a royal estate and abandoned about a century later. Its stone terraces and temples, high above the Urubamba River, were brought to the world's attention in 1911.
- City or settlementMesa VerdeColorado, United StatesMesa Verde is a national park in Colorado with cliff dwellings built by Ancestral Puebloan people in the 1200s, among the best preserved in North America. It includes Cliff Palace, the largest cliff dwelling in the country.
- City or settlementMohenjo-daroPakistanMohenjo-daro is a planned city of the Indus civilisation in southern Pakistan, built about 4,500 years ago, with brick houses, streets laid out on a grid, drains, and a large public bath.
- MonumentNazca LinesPeruThe Nazca Lines are huge figures and straight lines scraped into the desert of southern Peru between about 500 BC and 500 AD. They are best seen from the air, and show animals, plants and geometric shapes.
- Hominin fossil siteNeander ValleyGermanyThe Neander Valley is a small valley near Düsseldorf, Germany, where quarry workers found bones in 1856 that gave the Neanderthals their name. The cave they came from was quarried away, but a museum now stands by the site.
- MonumentNewgrangeIrelandNewgrange is a large passage tomb in the Boyne Valley, Ireland, built about 5,200 years ago, whose inner chamber is lit by the rising sun around the winter solstice. It is older than Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids.
- Hominin fossil siteOlduvai GorgeTanzaniaOlduvai Gorge is a deep valley in northern Tanzania where layers laid down over nearly two million years hold early human fossils and the oldest well-studied stone tools. Work there by Louis and Mary Leakey made East Africa famous as the cradle of humanity.
- City or settlementPetraJordanPetra is a city in southern Jordan with buildings and tombs carved into rose-coloured sandstone cliffs by the Nabataeans, an Arab people who grew rich on the trade in incense and spices more than 2,000 years ago.
- City or settlementPompeiiItalyPompeii was a Roman town near Naples, Italy, buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE and preserved under the ash. Its streets, houses, wall paintings and the shapes of its victims give an unusually detailed view of everyday Roman life.
- MonumentRapa Nui (Easter Island)Easter Island, ChileRapa Nui, or Easter Island, is a remote island in the Pacific, part of Chile, famous for its large stone statues called moai. They were carved by Polynesian settlers who reached the island around 800 years ago.
- Hominin fossil siteSierra de AtapuercaSpainThe Sierra de Atapuerca is a range of low hills in northern Spain whose caves hold one of the richest records of early human life in Europe, from about 1.2 million years ago to the Bronze Age. It includes the Sima de los Huesos, with the bones of at least 28 early Neanderthals, and Gran Dolina, home of Homo antecessor.
- City or settlementSkara BraeScotland, United KingdomSkara Brae is a stone-built Neolithic village on Orkney, Scotland, occupied about 5,000 years ago and so well preserved that its stone furniture still stands in the houses. It is older than Stonehenge and the pyramids of Giza.
- Hominin fossil siteSterkfontein CavesSouth AfricaThe Sterkfontein Caves near Johannesburg have produced more early hominin fossils than any other site in the world, including the skull nicknamed Mrs Ples and the nearly complete skeleton called Little Foot. They are part of the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site.
- MonumentStonehengeEngland, United KingdomStonehenge is a ring of standing stones on Salisbury Plain in southern England, built in stages from about 5,000 years ago. Some of its stones were brought from Wales and Scotland, and it is aligned on the midsummer and midwinter sun.
- MonumentSutton HooEngland, United KingdomSutton Hoo is a field of burial mounds in Suffolk, England, where an Anglo-Saxon ship burial full of treasure was found in 1939. It dates from the early 600s AD and is probably the grave of a king of East Anglia.
- City or settlementTeotihuacanMexicoTeotihuacan is a vast ancient city near Mexico City, with the Pyramids of the Sun and the Moon along a broad central avenue. At its height, about 1,500 years ago, it was among the largest cities in the world.
- MonumentTerracotta ArmyChinaThe Terracotta Army is a collection of thousands of life-size clay soldiers buried near the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China, near Xi'an. They were made over 2,200 years ago, and discovered by farmers in 1974.
- City or settlementTroyTurkeyTroy is a mound called Hisarlık in northwest Turkey with nine main layers of settlement over about 4,000 years, identified with the Troy of Greek legend. Whether the Trojan War happened is unknown, but a late Bronze Age city stood there.
- Hominin fossil siteZhoukoudianChinaZhoukoudian is a cave site near Beijing, China, where the Homo erectus fossils known as Peking Man were excavated from the 1920s onward. Most of the original bones disappeared in 1941, and casts and detailed records are what survive.