Jericho, often quoted as the first town, grows into a settlement covering ten acres

Sun-dried bricks are used in the construction of buildings in Jericho

The neolithic town of Catal Huyuk has rectangular rooms with windows, a design with lasting appeal

The neolithic town of Khirokitia in Cyprus has a paved public street with lanes leading off to courtyards of round tent-like houses

A passage grave with a superb corbelled dome is constructed on the Île Longue off the southern coast of Brittany

Imhotep creates the first pyramid - the 'step pyramid' at Saqqara - as a tomb for the pharaoh Djoser

The first and largest of the three great pyramids at Giza is built for the pharaoh Khufu, later known to the Greeks as Cheops

A small neolithic community builds a village at Skara Brae in the Orkneys, of stone houses with built-in stone furniture

A superb passage grave is built at Newgrange in Ireland

Knossos, and other such palaces, are built for dynasties in Minoan Crete

The cemetery at Los Millares in Spain contains more than 100 beehive tombs

The temples of Karnak and Luxor, in ancient Thebes, introduce the massive stone architecture of column and lintel

The massive architecture of Mycenaean cities such as Tiryns is said in Greek legend to have been built by one-eyed giants, the Cyclopes

The so-called Treasury of Atreus, at Mycenae, is the most spectacular of the beehive tombs of this period

The pharaoh Amenhotep III commissions the great temple to Amen-Re at Luxor

Ramses II creates a spectacular temple in his own honour at Abu Simbel

The Olmecs raise large clay platforms, probably with temples at the top, beginning the long American tradition of sacred pyramids

Burial mounds feature in the Ohio valley, built first in the Adena culture and then by Hopewell tribes

The capitals of Greek pillars are by now in the two basic patterns of Doric and Ionic

Cyrus the Great is buried in an austerely impressive tomb at Pasagardae, in Persia

The Greek colonists of Paestum, in southern Italy, build the first of their three superb temples

Darius starts to build a spectacular new palace and capital at Persepolis

The Athenians begin building the Parthenon, a temple to Athena, which they complete within ten years

Ictinos, the architect of the Parthenon, blends Doric and Ionic elements in a way which will later influence many other Greek temples

The Greeks develop the three classical styles of column, the Doric, the Ionic and the Corinthian