Pachmarhi hills, Madhya Pradesh- Mesolithic stone painitngs

The Pachmarhi Hills are situated in the geographical center of the Indian sub continent in the State of Madhya Pradesh. The hills lie in the Satpura Range, formed of the Gondwanaland sandstone belonging to the Gondwanaland series of the Talcher Group formations. The sandstone sequence is of the upper Gondwanaland formation. The sandstone is relatively friable and, on weathering, forms the sandy solid found at the foot of the hills. These hills form one of the most beautiful parts of the Satpura Range. The shelters are found all over the hills and the surrounding forests, in the foothills and riverbanks. Many shelters are covered with paintings made over centuries by early inhabitants depicting a wide range of subjects expressed by them in a variety of styles and left as great heritage for us to understand them and appreciate their unique contribution.

MONTE VERDE- SOUTH AMERICA

Monte Verde is an archaeological site in southern Chile, located near Puerto Montt, Southern Chile, which has been dated to 14,800 years BP.[1] This dating adds to the evidence showing that the human settlement of the Americas pre-dates the Clovis culture by roughly 1000 years. This contradicts the previously accepted "Clovis first" model which holds that settlement of the Americas began after 13,500 BP. The Monte Verde findings were initially dismissed by most of the scientific community, but in recent years the evidence has become more widely accepted in some archaeological circles, although vocal "Clovis First" advocates remain.[3] Coastal migration is a widely accepted model explaining the inhabitance of Monte Verde. Archaeological evidence shows that people arrived at Monte Verde about 1,800 years before the time that the Bering Land Bridge between Alaska and Siberia would have become impassable in 13,000 BP. This leaves traveling down the western coast of the Americas as the most plausible explanation for the earliest inhabitants of Chile. Paleoecological evidence of the coastal landscape's ability to sustain human life further supports this model. However, no archaeological evidence has been found of pre-Clovis humans using a coastal migration route.

Clovis culture-north AMERICA

The Clovis culture is a prehistoric Paleo-Indian culture, named after distinct stone tools found at sites near Clovis, New Mexico, in the 1920s and 1930s. The Clovis culture appears around 11,050 RCYBP (radiocarbon years before present[1]), at the end of the last glacial period, characterized by the manufacture of "Clovis points" and distinctive bone and ivory tools. Archaeologists' most precise determinations at present suggest that this radiocarbon age is equal to roughly 13,200 to 12,900 calendar years ago. Clovis people are considered to be the ancestors of most of the indigenous cultures of North and South America.

JOMON PERIOD-JAPAN

The Jōmon period  is the time in Prehistoric Japan from about 12,000 BC and in some cases cited as early as 14,500 BC to about 300 BC, when Japan was inhabited by a hunter-gatherer culture which reached a considerable degree ofsedentism and cultural complexity.

EUROPEAN MEGALITHIC TOMBS

Construction of megalithic grave

A megalith is a large stone that has been used to construct a structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. The word "megalithic" describes structures made of such large stones, utilizing an interlocking system without the use of mortar or cement, as well as representing periods of prehistory characterised by such constructions. For later periods the term monolith, with an overlapping meaning, is more likely to be used.The word "megalith" comes from the Ancient Greek " (megas) meaning "great" and (lithos) meaning "stone." Megalith also denotes an item consisting of rock(s) hewn in definite shapes for special purposes. It has been used to describe buildings built by people from many parts of the world living in many different periods. A variety of large stones are seen as megaliths, with the most widely known megaliths not being sepulchral. The construction of these structures took place mainly in the Neolithic (though earlier Mesolithic examples are known) and continued into the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age.

Machalilla-America

The Machalilla were a prehistoric people in Ecuador, in southern Manabí and the Santa Elena Peninsula. The dates when the culture thrived are uncertain, but are generally agreed to encompass 1500 BCE to 1100 BCE.[1]

The Machalilla were an agricultural people who also pursued fishing, hunting and gathering. Like many prehistoric cultures of coastal Ecuador, the people practiced artificial cranial deformation by using stones to flatten and lengthen their skulls.[2]

Archaeologists focus on the unusual cemeteries of the Machalilla, in which bodies were settled beneath a ceramic turtle shell,[3] and on their ceramic work in general, which represented artistic and technological advances in the art.[4]

The Machalilla are credited with adding to the ceramic bottle the stirrup spout, in which two spouts join together into one opening: an invention that would be prominent in northwest South American pottery for centuries.[1]

OLMEC CULTURE-

The Olmec were the first major civilization in Mexico. They lived in the tropical lowlands of south-central Mexico, in the modern-day states of Veracruz and Tabasco.The Olmec flourished during Mesoamerica's Formative period, dating roughly from as early as 1500 BCE to about 400 BCE. Pre-Olmec cultures had flourished in the area since about 2500 BCE, but by 1600–1500 BCE, Early Olmec culture had emerged centered on the San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán site near the coast in southeast Veracruz.[1] They were the first Mesoamerican civilization and laid many of the foundations for the civilizations that followed.[2] Among other "firsts", the Olmec appeared to practice ritual bloodletting and played the Mesoamerican ballgame, hallmarks of nearly all subsequent Mesoamerican societies.

The most familiar aspect of the Olmecs is their artwork, particularly the aptly named "colossal heads

Varanasi-OLDEST CONTINUOUSLY INHABITED CITIES

The earliest known archaeological evidence suggests that settlement around Varanasi in the Ganga valley (the seat of Aryan religion and philosophy) began in the 11th or 12th century BC,[18] placing it among theworld's oldest continually inhabited cities. These archaeological remains suggest that the Varanasi area was populated by Vedic people.[21] However, the Atharvaveda (the oldest known text referencing the city), which dates to approximately the same period, suggests that the area was populated by indigenous tribes.[21] It is possible that archaeological evidence of these previous inhabitants has yet to be discovered.[21] Varanasi was also home to Parshva, the 23rd Jain Tirthankara and the earliest Tirthankara accepted as a historical figure in the 8th century BC.[22][23]

Varanasi grew as an important industrial centre, famous for its muslin and silk fabrics, perfumes, ivory works, and sculpture.In ancient times, Varanasi was connected by a road starting from Taxila and ending at Pataliputra during the Mauryan Empire.

Sun temple at Amarna-Egypt

he Great Temple of the Aten (or the pr-Jtn, House of the Aten[1]) was located in the city of el-Amarna, Egypt, and was the main temple for the worship of the god Atenduring the reign of Akhenaten (c. 1353-1336 BCE[2]).[3] Akhenaten ushered in a unique period of ancient Egyptian history by establishing the new religious cult dedicated to the sun-disk Aten. Akhenaten shut down traditional worship of other deities like Amun-Ra and brought in a new era, though short-lived, of seeming monotheism where the Aten was worshipped as a sun god and Akhenaten and his wife, Nefertiti, represented the divinely royal couple that connected the people with the god

The city of Akhetaten was built rather hastily and was constructed mostly of mud-brick. Mud-bricks were made by drying in the sun and they measured 33-37 cm x 15-16 cm x 9-10 cm, although bricks for temple enclosure walls were slightly larger, at 38 cm x 16 cm x 16 cm.[4] During construction, bricks were laid down with a small amount of mortar between the rows and no mortar between adjacent bricks. There was no rain to deteriorate the bricks but they would wear down from wind-swept sand, so for protection walls were plastered with a layer of mud that could be reapplied. As the bricks dried, they often shrank leading to warping and structural problems, so a technique was developed of arranging the rows of bricks so that every other row was nearly hollow, allowing for air to circulate. While this helped walls keep their form, it also acted to weaken the walls so particularly high constructions meant to hold a lot of weight had to be made differently.[4] For pylon towers and large surrounding walls like those at the Great Temple of the Aten, timber was used for structural support and the public buildings within the Temple had stone columns and were built of other stones for more support. Stone columns conformed to the usual style found elsewhere in Egypt, representing either palm-frond or papyrus.[4] To lay out structural elements like offering tables and pits on a plaster floor, string was used. The string was first dipped in black paint and stretched tightly and was allowed to touch the ground, leaving a mark. In some instances the string was even pushed into the plaster floor, leaving a shallow groove. A similar technique was used to divide up wall surfaces before they were decorated with relief.[4]

The actual construction of the temple was accomplished in a series of steps. Before anything was built, there was already some kind of dedication ceremony at the site.[4] A ceremonial gateway with receptacles for liquid offerings stood at the beginning of a paved avenue. The avenue extended eastward and was lined with sphinxes, but they were later replaced by trees (tree pits, some still containing tree roots, have been excavated). The avenue led up to a small mud-brick shrine which was later built into the main design scheme of the Temple.The first main construction undertaken by Akhenaten was the building of the temenos wall, enclosing a huge area of 229m x 730m. As the wall was being completed, the stone Sanctuary at the east end of the enclosure was built. This Sanctuary seemed to function on its own for some time until a few years later when Akhenaten added the Gem-Aten on the west side of the enclosure. With this addition, the original ceremonial gate had to be taken down and a raised causeway was built over it. The Gem-Aten was originally constructed in stone, but it seems that as time went on Akhenaten ran low on materials and the latter part of the Gem-Aten was finished with mud-brick.[4] It is unknown exactly how the Temple walls were decorated because the entire area was destroyed later on, but fragments that have been found show that there were many statues of Akhenaten and his family placed all around the Temple.

One of the most distinctive aspects of the Temple was that there was no cult image of the god. Instead, the Temple was open-aired and had no roof, so that people worshipped the actual sun directly overhead as it traveled from east to west.

POVERTY POINT-AMERICA

Poverty Point is a prehistoric earthworks of the Poverty Point culture, now a historic monument located in the Southern United States. It is 15.5 miles (24.9 km) from the current Mississippi River,[2]and situated on the edge of Maçon Ridge, near the village of Epps in West Carroll Parish in northeastern Louisiana.Poverty Point comprises several earthworks and mounds built between 1650 and 700 BCE, during the Archaic period in the Americas by a group of Native Americans of the Poverty Point culture. The culture extended 100 miles (160 km) across the Mississippi Delta. The original purposes of Poverty Point have not been determined by archaeologists, although they have proposed various possibilities including that it was: a settlement, a trading center, and/or a ceremonial religious complex.

SOLOMON'S TEMPLE

According to the Hebrew Bible, Solomon's Temple, also known as the First Temple, was the Holy Temple in ancient Jerusalem, on the Temple Mount (also known as Mount Zion), before its destruction by Nebuchadnezzar II after the Siege of Jerusalem of 587 BCE. There is no direct archaeological evidence for the existence of Solomon's Temple, and no mention of it in the surviving contemporary extra-biblical literature

KUSHAN EMPIRE

The Kushan Empirewas an empire in South Asia originally formed in the early 1st century CE under Kujula Kadphisesin the territories of ancient Bactria around the Oxus River (Amu Darya), and later based near Kabul, Afghanistan. The Kushans spread from the Kabul River Valley to defeat other Central Asian tribes that had previously conquered parts of the northern central Iranian Plateau once ruled by the Parthians, and reached their peak under the Buddhist emperorKanishka (127–151), whose realm stretched from Turfan in the Tarim Basin to Pataliputra on the Gangetic Plain.

Teuchitlan tradition- COLUMBIA

The Teuchitlan tradition was a pre-Columbian complex society that occupied areas of the modern-day Mexican states of Nayarit and Jalisco. Although evidence of Teuchitlan tradition architecture appears as early as 300 BCE, its rise is generally dated to the end of the Formative period, 200 CE.[1] The tradition is rather abruptly extinguished at the end of the Classic era, ca. 900 CE

KOFUN PERIOD-JAPAN

Kofun are defined as the burial mounds built for the people of the ruling class during the 3rd to 7th centuries in Japan,[3] and the Kofun period takes its name from these distinctive earthen mounds. The mounds contained large stone burial chambers. Some are surrounded by moats.

The Kofun period ( 古墳時代  Kofun jidai?) is an era in the history of Japan from around 250 to 538. It follows the Yayoi period. The word kofun is Japanese for the type of burial mounds dating from this era. The Kofun and the subsequent Asuka periods are sometimes referred to collectively as the Yamato period. The Kofun period is the oldest era of recorded history in Japan

MAHABODI TEMPLE

The Mahabodhi Temple  (Literally: "Great Awakening Temple"), a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is a Buddhisttemple in Bodh Gaya, marking the location where Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, is said to have attained enlightenment. Bodh Gaya (located in Gaya district) is located about 96 km (60 mi) from Patna, Bihar state, India.

Next to the temple, on its western side, is the holy Bodhi tree. In the Pali Canon, the site is called Bodhimanda,[1] and the monastery there the Bodhimanda Vihara. The tallest tower is 55 metres (180 ft) tall.

Traditional accounts say that, around 530 BC, Siddhartha Gautama, a young prince who saw the suffering of the world and wanted to end it, reached the forested banks of Falgu River, near the city of Gaya, India. There he sat in meditation under a peepul tree (Ficus religiosa or Sacred Fig),[3] which later became known as the Bodhi tree. According to Buddhist scriptures, after three days and three nights, Siddharta attained enlightenment and the answers that he had sought. In that location, Mahabodhi Temple was built by Emperor Ashoka in around 260 BC