The oldest monuments that still survive around the world offer archaeologists and historians rare insights into the development of early civilisations. The identity of the people who made them and their purposes may have been lost to time, but they remain as monuments to everyday life and death, and humankind’s move from hunter-gatherers to settlement.

Click through the gallery to discover 30 of the world's most ancient structures, from burial mounds to cities, presented from 'newest' to oldest…