Prehistory
Sesklo: One of Europe's Earliest Neolithic Settlements
Sesklo became one of the best-known early farming villages in Europe and the type site of the Middle Neolithic Sesklo culture of Thessaly.
Era · Before c. 3000 BC
Prehistory
From the formation of Earth and the age of dinosaurs to the first cave art and monuments, before writing was invented.
Prehistory
Spread of Farming into Europe: The Neolithic Expansion
Over roughly 2,500 years farming replaced foraging across most of Europe, largely carried by migrant farmers of Anatolian ancestry who gradually mixed with local hunter-gatherers.
Prehistory
Ubaid Period: Mesopotamia's First Farming Villages and Temples
The first farming society of the southern Mesopotamian plain, whose villages, irrigation and temples laid the foundations for the Uruk period and Sumerian civilisation.
Prehistory
Samarra Culture: Early Irrigation Farming in Mesopotamia
A farming culture that pioneered canal irrigation in Mesopotamia and helped pave the way for the Ubaid settlement of the southern plain.
Prehistory
Xinglongwa Culture: Early Villages and Jade in Inner Mongolia
An early Neolithic culture of north-east China whose villages, millet and jade working foreshadowed the later Hongshan culture.
Prehistory
Halaf Culture: Painted Pottery of Neolithic Mesopotamia
A widespread village culture whose fine pottery, seals and exchange networks united northern Mesopotamia before Ubaid influence replaced it.
Prehistory
Almendres Cromlech: The Largest Stone Circle in Iberia
A megalithic enclosure of about 95 standing stones, the largest such monument in the Iberian Peninsula.
Prehistory
Vinča Culture: Balkan Neolithic Tells, Figurines and Symbols
A long-lived Neolithic and Copper Age culture whose villages, figurines, sign system and copper metallurgy made it one of the most advanced societies of prehistoric Europe.
Prehistory
Linear Pottery Culture: The First Farmers of Central Europe
The first farming culture of central Europe, which settled the loess lands in a few centuries and ended in a period of crisis around 5000-4900 BC, giving way to regional successor cultures.
Prehistory
Cucuteni-Trypillia Culture: Europe's Neolithic Mega-Settlements
A long-lived farming culture that built the largest settlements in Europe of its time before breaking up into regional groups around 3000 BC.
Prehistory
Hemudu Culture: Rice Farmers of the Neolithic Yangtze Delta
A Neolithic culture of the lower Yangtze whose waterlogged sites gave key evidence for early rice farming and wooden architecture.
Prehistory
Eridu: Mesopotamia's Earliest Settlement and Temple Sequence
One of the oldest settlements of southern Mesopotamia, whose superimposed temples document the origins of Mesopotamian temple architecture.