Ancient Sites and Monuments Survey
Open survey · from the ground up

Ancient Sites and Monuments Survey

Stone, timber, and earth.

—sites in the record
one dot per recorded site
Loading the record…
The record

Browse the sites

Types
All types
—
How the survey works

Build upward, and keep the layers apart

1 · Shape

What is there

The site as found: its local name, a plain description, a photograph and its coordinates.

2 · Secondary aspects

Plan, orientation, building style, distribution

Four separate descriptions of the same monument, kept separate, so that agreement between them means something when it appears.

3 · Meaning

Last, and labeled

Purpose, makers, later use and transmission are recorded apart from the description and marked as interpretation. Nothing from this layer is allowed into the first two.

Sites imported from open data arrive with a name, coordinates and a type label only. Type labels come from the source and often carry a conclusion (“grave”, “temple”); they are kept as the source gave them.

Contribute

Suggest a site

Coordinates, a photograph and what you call it are enough to start. Contributors are credited.

Where the data comes from

Sources in the survey

Every source is credited. Open sources are taken in as they are published; closed ones are asked. The list grows as answers come back.

Multiple requests are pending and ongoing, and we continue to build out the site. We welcome emails to jensine@alumni.princeton.edu about people and sources we can contact to request access to additional data.

Locations. Sites are shown where their sources place them. Where a source restricts exact locations to protect sites from looting, the public map and the download show the point rounded to about 1 km, and the record says so; exact points are kept privately and not shared.

Record IDs and citation. Every record has a permanent Survey ID (such as MS-000123) that is never reused, even when records are merged or removed. Search for an ID to find its record; each record shows a citation to copy.

The Survey builds on the remarkable work of many others: national and regional heritage agencies, research projects such as EAMENA and MAEASaM, the volunteers of the Megalithic Portal and OpenStreetMap, and syntheses such as Megaliths of the World (Laporte et al., 2022). What is new is combining open national and regional registers from dozens of countries into one openly licensed record, with a permanent ID and a source credit for every site.

In the survey

We kindly thank the following for their contributions to the site. We continue to add data sets on a regular basis (daily or weekly), so come back to visit us soon!

  • OpenStreetMap contributors · worldwide
  • Wikidata · worldwide
  • National Monuments Service, Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland
  • Historic England, National Heritage List and aerial mapping; Cornwall Council, Cornwall and Scilly HER · England
  • Korea Heritage Service (국가유산청), designated sites · South Korea
  • Archaeological Survey of India, protected monuments, via Wikidata · India
  • Globalkites project (CNRS), desert kites · Arabia to Kazakhstan
  • Northern Ireland Sites and Monuments Record; Cadw, scheduled monuments · Northern Ireland, Wales
  • Mérimée, protected historic monuments · France
  • Museovirasto · Finland; Riksantikvaren · Norway
  • IPHAN, national register of archaeological sites · Brazil
  • Miyagi, Hokkaido, Kumamoto and Wakayama prefectures, site maps of buried cultural properties; Gifu Prefecture, map of excavated sites · Japan
  • DRAC Bretagne, Carte archéologique nationale · Brittany, France
  • Ministero della Cultura, Geoportale Nazionale per l’Archeologia and the ICCD General Catalogue · Italy
  • Ministrstvo za kulturo, register of immovable cultural heritage · Slovenia; Gobierno de Aragón, IDEAragon · Aragón, Spain
  • Kalliola, Pärssinen, Ranzi, Seppä & Barbosa (2024), geometric earthworks; Pärssinen et al. (2026), earthworks found by lidar · Acre, Amazonas, Rondônia, northern Bolivia
  • EAMENA, Endangered Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa (Oxford, Southampton) · North Africa and the Middle East; locations rounded to about 1 km
  • Costanzo et al. (2021), Kassala survey tumuli · Sudan
  • Historic Environment Scotland, scheduled monuments and Canmore · Scotland
  • RCAHMW, National Monuments Record of Wales (Coflein) · Wales
  • Riksantikvarieämbetet, Kulturmiljöregistret · Sweden
  • Onroerend Erfgoed · Flanders; Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed, rijksmonumenten and the Archeologische Monumentenkaart · Netherlands
  • IDENA, Gobierno de Navarra, archaeological heritage · Navarra, Spain; Cabrero González et al., Gor River megalithic landscape · Granada, Spain
  • Gobierno Vasco, Ondarea cultural heritage · Basque Country; Junta de Castilla y León, archaeological sites · Castilla y León, Spain
  • Lima e Silva et al. (2026), Serra do Laboreiro mounds · Portugal and Galicia; Wasfy (2026), stone structures seen in satellite imagery · central Saudi Arabia
  • Património Cultural, I.P., Portal do Arqueólogo · Portugal
  • Diputació de Barcelona, Mapes del Patrimoni Cultural · province of Barcelona, Catalonia
  • Superintendence of Cultural Heritage, National Inventory of the Cultural Property of the Maltese Islands · Malta
  • Nacionālā kultūras mantojuma pārvalde, state-protected monuments list · Latvia
  • Heritage NSW, State Heritage Register · New South Wales, Australia
  • Région des Pays de la Loire, Inventaire du patrimoine · France
  • Slots- og Kulturstyrelsen, Fund og Fortidsminder · Denmark
  • Regione Autonoma della Sardegna, Piano Paesaggistico Regionale, repertorio of landscape heritage · Sardinia, Italy
  • Institutul Național al Patrimoniului, Repertoriul Arheologic Național · Romania
  • Müller, Kruckenberg, Großmann and Luckner (2023), A Map of European Megaliths · approximate locations
  • Muinsuskaitseamet, heritage register · Estonia
  • National Park Service, National Register (public points) · USA
  • Bureau of Cultural Heritage, Ministry of Culture, designated archaeological sites · Taiwan
  • Kultūros paveldo departamentas and Valstybės duomenų agentūra, register of cultural property (KVR) · Lithuania
  • Bundesdenkmalamt and Land Oberösterreich (DORIS), archaeological sites · Upper Austria
  • Ålands landskapsregering, register of ancient remains · Åland, Finland
  • Archeologický ústav SAV, Central Register of Archaeological Sites (CEANS) · Slovakia
  • Region of Crete, Archaeological Cadastre of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture · Crete, Greece
  • Cabildo Insular de La Palma, island heritage elements · La Palma, Canary Islands
  • Ministarstvo kulture i medija, Register of Cultural Goods · Croatia; approximate locations
  • Ministry of Culture of Ukraine, State Register of Immovable Monuments · Ukraine
  • Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Belarus, State List of Historical and Cultural Values · Belarus
  • Government of the Republic of Armenia, State Lists of Immovable Monuments · Armenia; approximate locations
  • National Institute for Immovable Cultural Heritage (NINKN), municipal lists · Bulgaria; approximate locations
  • Akimats of the oblasts of Kazakhstan, State Lists of Monuments of Local Significance · Kazakhstan
  • National Agency for Cultural Heritage Preservation of Georgia, register of immovable cultural heritage · Georgia
  • Junta de Andalucía, Catálogo General del Patrimonio Histórico Andaluz (DERA) · Andalusia, Spain
  • Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Uzbekistan, National List of immovable cultural heritage · Uzbekistan; approximate locations
  • Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Azerbaijan, lists of immovable historical and cultural monuments (Decision 132) · Azerbaijan; approximate locations
  • Minjastofnun Íslands, register of archaeological sites (Fornleifaskráning) · Iceland
  • Narodowy Instytut Dziedzictwa, inventory of archaeological monuments · Poland; approximate locations
  • Pleiades, gazetteer of past places (ISAW, New York University) · the ancient Mediterranean and Near East
  • GeoNames, places coded as archaeological sites, forts, mounds, cairns, ruins and ancient roads, and village points for register entries without coordinates · worldwide
  • Xunta de Galicia, IET, Catálogo do Patrimonio Cultural (Plan Básico Autonómico) · Galicia, Spain
  • Ministerio de Cultura del Perú, Bienes Inmuebles Prehispánicos · Peru
  • Menze and Ur (2012), settlement mounds of the Upper Khabur Basin · Syria, Turkey and Iraq
  • Institutul Național al Patrimoniului and cIMeC, national heritage map, “Tumuli” layer · Romania
  • 국가유산청 (Korea Heritage Service), National Heritage GIS · South Korea; Chiba Prefecture and Okayama Prefecture buried-site maps · Japan
  • © Denkmaldaten/BLDAM 2026 · Brandenburg, Germany; Bundesdenkmalamt, HERIS · Austria
  • Tahiti Heritage (Collection Tahiti Héritage), used with permission; records link to their articles · French Polynesia; Antiquities and Monuments Office, Sites of Archaeological Interest · Hong Kong
  • Wikidata and the Wiki Loves Monuments lists of Iran’s national monuments (Persian Wikipedia) · Iran; many placed at their village or county
  • MAEASaM, University of Cambridge · sub-Saharan Africa; Národní památkový ústav, Památkový katalog · Czech Republic
  • William C. Mills, Archeological Atlas of Ohio (1914), with data gathered by Warren K. Moorehead and Lucy Allen · Ohio, United States; approximate locations
  • Ibaraki, Iwate and Okinawa Prefectures, site maps · Japan
  • Department of Planning, Lands and Heritage, Western Australia, Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Register (DPLH-099), used under license · Western Australia; locations rounded to about 1 km
  • Sharma and Sontakke (2026) and Sharma (2025), Vindhyan megaliths · India
  • Tundzha Regional Archaeological Project (Sobotkova and Valchev 2024), verified burial mounds · Yambol, Bulgaria
  • Wasfy (2026), machine-detected candidate mustatils, pendants, cairns and khirigsuurs · Saudi Arabia, Mongolia; machine-detected, not confirmed
  • Aslan (2025), sites of the Eastern Anatolian Highlands · Türkiye
  • Villages to Empires, South Levant sites (University of Turin) · Israel and Palestine
  • Crawford and Vella (2022), Cyprus Settlement Database · Cyprus
  • INEGI, archaeological features of the 1:50,000 topographic data · Mexico
  • Lock and Ralston (2017), Atlas of Hillforts of Britain and Ireland · Britain, Ireland, Isle of Man
  • EAMENA, Western Nafud survey · Saudi Arabia, Jordan; locations rounded to about 1 km
  • SASSI, Southern African Stone Age Site Index · South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini
  • XRONOS, open database of radiocarbon dates (University of Bern and partners) · worldwide; radiocarbon-dated sites
  • p3k14c (Bird et al. 2022), global database of archaeological radiocarbon dates · worldwide; United States and Canada at county level
  • radio-rian (Reid 2026), Irish radiocarbon determinations, after Chapple’s catalogue · Ireland
  • Sikk, Kriiska, Johanson, Sander and Vindi (2020), Stone Age settlement sites · Estonia
  • Archäologisches Inventar, Amt für Kultur des Kantons Bern · Switzerland (Canton of Bern)
  • Alshami (2026), Harrat Khaybar inventory of pendants, cairns, desert kites and mustatils · Saudi Arabia
  • Walker et al. (2023), known Amazonian archaeological sites · Brazil, Bolivia, Peru and neighbors
  • Vondrovský et al. (2026), Neolithic rondel enclosures of Central Europe · Austria, Croatia, Czechia, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia
  • Gwiazda (2020), Syro-Palestinian chamber tombs of the first millennium BCE and CE · Israel, Palestine, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Türkiye
  • Hosner et al. (2016), Neolithic and Bronze Age sites from the Atlas of Chinese Cultural Relics · China
  • Nankara and Ndigmbayel (2019), rock art and other sites of Borkou, Ennedi and Tibesti · Chad
  • Noranda et al. (2026), heritage lists of West Sumatra · Indonesia
  • Thuringian State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology (2026), barrows, barrow groups and menhirs · Germany (Thuringia)
  • Peripato et al. (2023), known pre-Columbian earthworks of Amazonia · Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, French Guiana
  • Jacobs (2016), Amazon geoglyphs seen on satellite imagery · Bolivia, Peru, Brazil
  • Kwok and Peters (2020), Archaeological Atlas of Published Excavations · worldwide
  • Fasti Online, International Association for Classical Archaeology, excavated sites · Mediterranean and beyond
  • Sparavigna (2025), Saharan keyhole monuments · Algeria
  • de Souza et al. (2018), Upper Tapajós earthworks · Brazil
  • Nielsen and Johannsen (2026), Early Corded Ware mortuary palisades · Denmark
  • Vermeersch (2020), Radiocarbon Palaeolithic Europe Database v26 · Europe and Siberia
  • Nincheri and Biancalani (2026), Lunigiana statue-stele find places · Italy
  • Pushkarev and Aitkali (2026), kurgans with stone “moustaches” · Kazakhstan
  • Sánchez Borjas and Ghezzi Solis (2025), Casma geoglyphs · Peru
  • Solis Quinteros (2019), Pampa de Ocas geoglyphs · Peru
  • Birkenfeld et al. (2026), stone circles around Rujm el-Hiri · Golan
  • Pereira, Manen and Rigaud (2023), Early Neolithic sites · Italy, France, Spain
  • d’Errico et al. (2025), Aurignacian and Gravettian sites · Europe
  • Altaweel (2015), settlements of southern Mesopotamia and the Khabur · Iraq, Syria
  • Pérez-Cárdenas et al. (2024), dated sites of Borneo · Malaysia, Indonesia
  • Titolo (2021), sites in the Mosul, Hamrin and Haditha reservoirs · Iraq
  • Carrero-Pazos, Bevan and Lake (2019), Galician megalithic mounds · Spain
  • Tóth, Oravkinová and Pokutta (2019), Otomani-Füzesabony sites · Slovakia, Hungary, Poland
  • Cobos (2026), dated sites of northwest Patagonia and central Chile · Argentina, Chile
  • Rademaker (2024), early dated sites · Peru
  • Bampi, Ribeiro and Barberi (2022), Kill Site Database · South America
  • Ševčík (2021), Baden and Post-Baden sites of the White Carpathians · Czech Republic, Slovakia
  • Figueiredo and Monteiro (2025), megaliths of Caldas da Rainha · Portugal
  • Abbas, Toraskar and Hawkes (2016), Vidarbha regional survey · India
  • Laguna-Palma (2022), Marmarica archaeological and heritage sites, PERAIA project, University of Granada · Egypt and Libya
  • Wiki Loves Monuments heritage lists for Russia (Russian Wikivoyage), archaeological monuments, some placed at their village or district · Russia
  • Nunatta Katersugaasivia Allagaateqarfialu (Greenland National Museum & Archives), Nunniffiit · Greenland
  • Instituto Colombiano de Antropología e Historia (ICANH), Atlas Arqueológico de Colombia · Colombia
  • Seidensticker, Hubau and Jungnickel, aDRAC, archive of radiocarbon dates from Central Africa · Central Africa
  • Niedersächsisches Landesamt für Denkmalpflege, Verzeichnis der Kulturdenkmale · Germany (Lower Saxony)
  • Landkreis Spree-Neiße, Untere Denkmalschutzbehörde, Bodendenkmale · Germany (Brandenburg)
  • Vici.org, archaeological atlas of antiquity (René Voorburg and contributors), places dated before the Common Era · Europe and the Mediterranean
  • Brandolini (2019), prehistoric and Iron Age sites of the Central Po Plain · Italy
  • World Heritage properties as entered in Wikidata, archaeological components · worldwide