Prehistory
Monte Verde: The Chilean Site That Rewrote American Prehistory
Acceptance of Monte Verde in 1997 ended the Clovis-first model and showed that people had reached South America by about 14,500 years ago.
Region
Americas
Prehistory
Clovis Culture: The Ice Age Hunters of Ancient North America
A widespread Ice Age tool tradition of North America, once thought to mark the first Americans but now known to post-date earlier human settlement.
Prehistory
Cueva de las Manos: The Cave of the Hands in Patagonia
The site became one of the best-known rock art sites in South America and was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1999.
Prehistory
Kennewick Man: The Ancient One and the Battle Over His Remains
After two decades of dispute, DNA showed the man was related to Native Americans and his remains were returned to Columbia Plateau tribes and reburied in 2017.
Prehistory
Domestication of Maize: From Teosinte to Corn in Ancient Mexico
Maize became the staple crop of the Americas and, after 1492, one of the most widely grown cereals in the world.
Prehistory
Chinchorro Mummies: The World's Oldest Artificial Mummies
The oldest known tradition of deliberate mummification; inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2021.
Prehistory
Valdivia Culture: Early Pottery and Villages of Ancient Ecuador
Valdivia became one of the earliest known settled, pottery-making societies of the Americas, laying foundations for later Ecuadorian cultures such as Machalilla and Chorrera.
Prehistory
Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump: Ancient Bison Hunting in Alberta
One of the oldest, largest and best-preserved bison jumps in North America, inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1981.
Prehistory
Watson Brake: North America's Oldest Known Mound Complex
The oldest known large mound complex in North America, proving that hunter-gatherers built monumental earthworks thousands of years before farming.
Prehistory
Norte Chico Civilization: Origins of the Americas' Oldest Cities
The earliest known complex society in the Americas, whose monumental towns set patterns later followed by Andean civilizations.
Ancient World
Poverty Point: The Ancient Earthworks of Northeast Louisiana
The largest earthwork complex of its time in North America, built by people who did not farm; a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2014.
Ancient World
Olmec Civilization: Rise of Mesoamerica's First Great Culture
The Olmec created the first great art style, monumental centres and elite networks of Mesoamerica, influencing the Maya, Zapotec and later cultures.