🇺🇸 United States · Earthwork
Spruce Hill Earthworks
Middle Woodland / Late Woodland debated · Hopewell tradition or Fort Ancient tradition
Hilltop stone-walled enclosure 42 ha above Paint Creek; Hopewell vs Fort Ancient debate.
🇺🇸 United States · Earthwork
Larkin Mound
Middle Woodland Weeden Island 200–600 CE · Weeden Island / Gulf Hopewell
Crystal River satellite burial mound with Hopewell copper and quartz, Gulf Hopewell southernmost evidence.
🇸🇪 Sweden · Earthwork
Stavgard Ringfort (Gotland)
Migration Period to Vendel Period (c.400–800 CE) · Gotlandic Iron Age
Pre-Viking ringfort (fornborg) on Gotland's southeast, circular limestone wall 80–100 m diameter enclosing 0.5 ha, with inner house terraces and Iron Age ceramics.
🇲🇽 Mexico · Archaeological wonder
La Joya
Classic Veracruz 100–1000 CE · Classic Veracruz (Remojadas-Early Gulf)
26-m earthen platform pyramid on Gulf coastal plain, 100–1000 CE.
🇺🇸 United States · Earthwork
Rock Eagle Effigy Mound
Archaic–Woodland 1000 BCE–1000 CE · Woodland / Archaic
36.5-m quartz eagle effigy, 1000–500 BCE.
🇵🇪 Peru · Archaeological wonder
Marcahuasi Plateau
Late Intermediate to Inca 900–1470 CE for human chullpas; natural rocks Tertiary · Wari-Associates?/Yauyo to Inca; natural geology Tertiary volcanics
4000-m 'stone forest' of giant natural pareidolic rocks and chullpa tombs.
🇬🇧 United Kingdom · Earthwork
Stonehenge Cursus
Early Neolithic 3800–3600 BCE · Early Neolithic Britons
2.7-km Neolithic processional enclosure predating Stonehenge by 500 years.
🇳🇬 Nigeria · Ancient city
Birnin Gazargamu
Late Medieval Kanem–Bornu (1460–1808 CE) · Kanuri (Kanem–Bornu)
Birnin Gazargamu (1460–1808) was Kanem–Bornu Empire capital, 6.5 km earthen walls 5 m high enclosing palace mound, great mosque 100×50 m and 200 compound mounds on Yo/ Kamadugu Yobe. 15th-c.
🇺🇸 United States · Earthwork
Grave Creek Mound
Early Woodland, Adena culture 1000 BCE–1 CE (peak 250–150 BCE) · Adena
Largest conical burial mound in North America (62 ft/19 m high, 240 ft/73 m diameter, 60,000 tons earth moved by basket) built by Adena peoples at Moundsville, WV.
🇲🇽 Mexico · Pyramid
La Venta Pyramid (Complex C)
Middle Formative Olmec 1000–400 BCE (pyramid c. 1000–600 BCE) · Olmec
Olmec capital La Venta (1000–400 BCE) great pyramid Complex C: 31–33 m high clay mound (150 × 130 m base, volume 100,000 m³), earliest known intentional pyramid in Mesoamerica (1000 BCE) – uniquely…
🇵🇪 Peru · Hydraulic works
Moray Agricultural Terraces
Late Horizon, Inca (~1300–1530 CE) · Inca
Three colossal natural depressions on the Maras plateau were amplified by Incas into concentric circular andenes up to 150 m across and 30 m deep, each terrace a microclimate ring with temperature…
🇾🇪 Yemen · Hydraulic works
Marib Dam
Sabaean Kingdom, Early South Arabian (~1750 BCE – 570 CE) · Sabaean (South Arabian, Kingdom of Saba)
Earthfill diversion dam spanning the Wadi Adhanah and flanked by the limestone North and South Sluices with Sabaean monumental inscriptions.
🇺🇸 United States · Earthwork
Old Stone Fort
Middle Woodland 80–550 CE · Middle Woodland (Hopewell-related)
2.75 km stone-walled hilltop enclosure, solstice-aligned, 80–550 CE.
🇺🇿 Uzbekistan · Ancient city
Uzundara Fortress
Hellenistic Greco-Bactrian (c. late 4th–2nd cent BCE, Achaemenid precursor debated) · Greco-Bactrian (Alexander successor kingdom)
Greco-Bactrian frontier phrourion — 13-tower stone fortress locking Bactria–Sogdiana pass on Susiztag ridge.
🇺🇸 United States · Earthwork
Mount Royal Archaeological Site
St Johns IIc–Mississippian 1050–1562 CE (midden 3000 BCE onward) · St Johns (Timucua ancestors)
St Johns platform mound 6.7 m with 300 m causeway and 6000-year midden, contacted 1562 by French.
🇺🇸 United States · Earthwork
Lake Jackson Mounds Archaeological State Park
Fort Walton Mississippian 1050–1500 CE · Fort Walton (Apalachee) Mississippian
Mississippian chiefdom capital on Lake Jackson with 11 m platform mound and famed repoussé copper plates.
🇺🇸 United States · Earthwork
Shiloh Indian Mounds National Historic Landmark
Early to Middle Mississippian 1000–1350 CE · Mississippian (Shiloh phase)
Palisaded 8-mound Mississippi River town on Tennessee River, 1000–1350 CE.
🇺🇸 United States · Earthwork
Liberty Earthworks
Middle Woodland Hopewell 100–350 CE · Hopewell tradition
Hopewell square 320 m with corner circles and Liberty Mound, Chillicothe cluster component.
🇺🇸 United States · Earthwork
Rock Hawk Effigy Mound
Woodland–Archaic 1000 BCE–1000 CE · Woodland peoples
30-m quartz hawk effigy on Oconee River, paired with Rock Eagle.
🇺🇸 United States · Earthwork
Fort Walton Mound
Mississippian Fort Walton 1100–1550 CE · Fort Walton (Mississippian Pensacola variant)
Fort Walton culture temple mound on Choctawhatchee Bay, 1100–1550 CE.
🇺🇸 United States · Earthwork
Jaketown Site
Late Archaic–Poverty Point ca. 1700–1500 BCE · Poverty Point culture (Jaketown phase)
8-mound Poverty Point–related center, 1700–1500 BCE.
🇺🇸 United States · Earthwork
Newark Earthworks
Hopewell culture 100 BCE–500 CE · Hopewell (Adena descended, Algonquian? cohort)
Hopewell giant geometric enclosures marking 18.6-yr lunar cycle.
🇺🇸 United States · Earthwork
Winterville Mounds
Plaquemine Mississippian Coles Creek-Winterville 900–1450 CE · Coles Creek / Plaquemine
16.7 m truncated pyramid center of 23-mound plaza, 1200–1400 CE.
🇸🇪 Sweden · Earthwork
Torsburgen Hillfort (Gotland)
Early Iron Age to Viking Age (c.300 BCE–1100 CE) · Gotlandic Iron Age / Viking Age
Largest hillfort in Scandinavia at 1.2 km² plateau fortified by 2 km limestone wall across the narrow neck of a 67 m high limestone plateau.