Middle Ages
Bonampak Murals: The Maya Paintings of War and Court Life
The best-preserved Classic Maya wall paintings, giving an unrivalled picture of royal ceremony, warfare and the treatment of captives.
Region
Americas
Middle Ages
Ciudad Perdida: The Lost City of the Tayrona in Colombia
A major Tayrona settlement abandoned during the Spanish conquest; known to outsiders after 1972 and now protected as Teyuna Archaeological Park.
Middle Ages
El Tajin: Pyramid of the Niches and the Ballcourt City
A major Classic Veracruz city that declined around 1150–1230; its ruins became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1992.
Middle Ages
Classic Maya Collapse: Why the Southern Maya Cities Fell
Divine kingship ended in the southern lowlands, most large cities were abandoned and population fell sharply, while Maya society continued and shifted north.
Middle Ages
Chaco Canyon and Pueblo Bonito: Ancestral Puebloan Centre
Chaco became the centre of a regional system of great houses and roads, then declined during drought in the twelfth century as population shifted north.
Middle Ages
Spiro Mounds: Mississippian Treasure and Its 1930s Looting
One of the richest Mississippian sites in North America; its main burial mound was largely destroyed by commercial looters in the 1930s.
Middle Ages
Chimu Kingdom and Chan Chan: Adobe Capital of Peru
The Chimu built the largest state on the Peruvian coast before being conquered by the Inca around 1470; Chan Chan became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1986.
Middle Ages
Tula: Capital of the Toltecs and Its Atlantean Warriors
Tula was the leading city of central Mexico in the Early Postclassic; it fell around 1150 and became the legendary 'Tollan' of Aztec tradition.
Middle Ages
Erik the Red and the Norse Settlement of Greenland (985)
Norse farming communities were established in south-west Greenland and survived for more than four centuries before being abandoned.
Middle Ages
L'Anse aux Meadows: The Norse Site in Newfoundland
The site proved that Norse Greenlanders reached North America about 500 years before Columbus; it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1978.
Middle Ages
Leif Erikson and the Norse in Vinland (c. 1000)
Norse Greenlanders explored and briefly settled parts of North America about five centuries before Columbus, but did not establish a lasting colony.
Middle Ages
Thorfinn Karlsefni's Vinland Expedition (c. 1010)
The settlers stayed two or three years but withdrew to Greenland after conflict with Indigenous people; no lasting Norse colony was founded.