Site Types in Archaeology

Although the best known archaeological sites are either temples or spectacular burials, archaeologists are interested in all kinds of behaviors exhibited by people in the past, not just the combination of wealth and religion. The variety of archaeological remains left by people in the past--no matter what their political or economic status--allows us to draw comparisons among the classes and gain a broader perspective on what human society was like in the past, and how that reverberates in our cultures today. Here are some of the classes of archaeological sites that are studied by archaeologists, identified by function, size, date, and assemblage of artifacts.

Ancient House Types

Mounds
Mounds are a type of archaeological site, a protuberance made of earth, which may or may not contain a burial.

Ancient Roads
Ancient roads are also site types: part of extensive transportation networks that played an important role in many ancient civilizations.

Astronomical Observatories
Buildings meant to track time have been constructed for some five thousand years. Here's a few of the important astronomical observatories around the world.

Cave Art
Cave art refers to paintings, murals, drawings, etchings, carvings, and pecked artwork on the interior of rockshelters and caves.

Causeways
A causeway is an early form of transportation system, consisting of a narrow, man-made earthen or rock structure that bridged a waterway.

Desert Castles
Desert castles are Islamic fortifications built during the earliest days of Islamic expansion, in the 8th century AD.

Pyramid
A pyramid is one of the earliest form of massive monumental architecture built by humans.

Fish Weir
A fish weir or fish trap is a step forward in fishing technology, used in North America for the past several thousand years.

Henge or Stone Circle
A henge is the term given to a large prehistoric earthwork, usually but not always circular, whether of stones, wood, or earth.

Hoards and Caches
"Hoards" or "caches" refer to collections of objects which were intentionally gathered together and buried underground.

Sirikwa Holes
The term Sirikwa Holes is the local name for depressions found throughout the western highlands of Kenya and in northern Tanzania; they represent late Iron Age hut locations.

Midden - What is a Midden
A midden is the archaeological term for a trash heap.

Synagogues
A synagogue is, of course, a religious structure that can be identified with the Jewish faith; the earliest synagogues probably developed during the Byzantine period of the 6th century BC.

Monumental Architecture
Monumental architecture, at an archaeological site, refers to large man-made structures of stone or earth.

Oppida
Oppida is the word given to the archaeological remains of fortified settlements throughout Europe by archaeologists, from a word used by Julius Caesar.

Temples and Shrines
Basically, archaeologists think of the word temple as meaning one of three kinds of shrines.

Quarrying Sites
A quarry or mine site is where raw material--stone or metal ore--was mined for use as building material or tool construction; and they are often mined for archaeological information as well.

Shell Middens
A shell midden is a type of archaeological site made almost entirely of mussel shells.

Statue-Menhirs
Statue-menhirs are a kind of megalithic standing stone consisting of a carved human or human-like statue of life or larger size.

Vitrified Forts
There are, believe it or not, some 200 hillforts and other archaeological sites in the world which have been vitrified--exposed to heat so extreme that part of the buildings are converted to glass-like substances.

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Archaeology