🇷🇺 Russia · Tumulus
Karakol Kurgans
Early Bronze Age, Karakol culture 2500-1800 BCE · Karakol culture (Altai Early Bronze)
Early Bronze stone-slab cist kurgans (2500-1800 BCE) at Karakol with tri-color polychrome slab paintings, pre-Pazyryk Altai.
🇸🇴 Somalia · Rock art
Laas Geel Rock Art Complex
Early to Mid Holocene (7000–3000 BCE) · Early Pastoral Neolithic of the Horn (pre-Cushitic pastoralists)
Somaliland granite shelters 20 panels polychrome longhorn cattle 7000–3000 BCE.
🇧🇷 Brazil · Earthwork
Marajoara Mounds (Teso dos Bichos)
Marajoara Phase (Polychrome Tradition) · Marajoara (Arauan-derived Amazonian Polychrome)
Marajoara chiefdom mounds (800–1400 CE)—40-m tesos and funerary urn fields on Amazon's delta island.
🇨🇳 China · Temple complex
Maijishan North Niche 135
Northern Dynasties (Western Wei to Northern Zhou) · Northern Zhou Buddhist (Yuwen court patronage)
North-face shaded Maitreya pensive niche preserving straw-plastic polychrome.
🇵🇪 Peru · Pyramid
Garagay Polychrome Pyramid
Formative Period (Cupisnique-Chavín / Manchay-Chavínoid, 1500–600 BCE, peak 1300–1000 BCE) · Chavínoid (Cupisnique/Chavín, Central Coast)
Chavínoid ceremonial center (Cupisnique-Chavín 1500–600 BCE, peak 1200 BCE) on north bank Rímac: U-shaped complex with central pyramid 85×60 m 25 m high in three construction phases, lateral…
🇵🇪 Peru · Pyramid
Huaca de la Luna (Moche Ceremonial Pyramid)
Early Intermediate Moche (100–800 CE, six building phases A–F, peak 400–650 CE) · Moche (Mochica, ceremonial counterpart to Del Sol administrative)
Ceremonial Moche pyramid (100–800 CE, 45×38 m 21 m high with six construction phases superpositioned — temple buried inside temple) at Cerro Blanco base opposite Del Sol.
🇵🇪 Peru · Temple complex
El Brujo
Early Intermediate–Middle Horizon · Moche (North Coast)
Moche polychrome pyramid complex (100 BCE–750 CE) with Lady of Cao tattooed queen burial and 30-m muraled Huaca.
🇵🇪 Peru · Archaeological wonder
Tambo Colorado
Late Horizon Inca coastal 1470–1532 CE · Inca (coastal Pisco Chinchaysuyu)
Best-preserved polychrome Inca adobe palace enclosure on Pisco coast, 1470–1532 CE.
🇪🇸 Spain · Rock art
Altamira Cave
Solutrean–Magdalenian ~18–14 ka BP · Solutrean/Magdalenian Cantabrian
Great Ceiling of polychrome bison — the Paleolithic Sistine Chapel at Santillana del Mar.
🇫🇷 France · Rock art
Font-de-Gaume Cave
Magdalenian ~17–14 ka BP · Magdalenian
Vézère polychrome gallery with 230 Magdalenian figures, last original painted cave open to public.
🇪🇸 Spain · Rock art
Tito Bustillo Cave
Solutrean to Magdalenian ~18–11 ka BP · Magdalenian Cantabrian
Ribadesella polychrome Magdalenian cave sealed until 1968 with 14 ka harpoon culture art.
🇵🇪 Peru · Rock art
Toquepala Caves
Early Holocene (~9500–7000 BCE) · Andean high-desert hunter-gatherer (Toquepala tradition)
Shallow Andean quebrada cave where Roger Ravines documented polychrome paintings of camelids, deer and corpulent hunters brandishing bows, one of the earliest figurative traditions on the Pacific…
🇮🇶 Iraq · Tell
Jemdet Nasr
Late Uruk to Early Dynastic I transitional (Jemdet Nasr period, c.3100–2900 BCE) · Late Uruk → Jemdet Nasr (proto-literate) → Early Dynastic I
Proto-cuneiform type-site of the 3100 BCE 'lost century' between Uruk and Dynastic Sumer.