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Photo courtesy of Gary O. Rollefson

Stone Age Ain Ghazal, boasting some of the world’s earliest temples, was discovered by accident. In the mid-1980s, a construction crew building a road on the outskirts of Amman plowed through a house (shown here, compare with photo of figurines) dating to Ain Ghazal’s first phase of occupation, the Middle Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period (7200–6500 B.C.). Portions of the house’s fieldstone walls and lime-plaster floor have remained intact for more than 8,500 years, a testament to the Neolithic builders’ skill.