The World's Oldest Settlements Were Built by a Culture Nobody Expected [View all]

16 December 2023
ByCARLY CASSELLA



An aerial view of Amnya archaeological sites. (Nikita Golovanov)

Thousands of years before ancient people in Central Eurasia learned to farm, hunter-gatherer groups in the subarctic were building some of the first permanent, fortified settlements, challenging the notion that agriculture was a prerequisite for societies to 'settle down'.

Researchers now think they have dated the earliest known fortifications in the icy north, if not the world, near a curve of the Amnya River in Western Siberia.

The Amnya archaeological sites were officially unearthed from 1987 onwards, but recent radiocarbon dating has found the main pit house at Amnya Site I and its fortifications date back 8,000 years or so.

The ancient building (circled in red in the illustration below) is now just a wide depression in the ground, but it was once protected by a ditch and possibly also another pit house. Radiocarbon dating suggests it was built in the final century of the seventh millennium BCE.



diagram and aerial view of Amnya settlements
An illustration of the layout of the Amnya Site I and Site II in Western Siberia near the Amnya River, showing trenches and buildings. In the right hand corner is an aerial photograph showing the site. (illustration by N. Golovanov, S. Krubeck & S. Juncker)

More:
https://www.sciencealert.com/the-worlds-oldest-settlements-were-built-by-a-culture-nobody-expected