Sheri Khan Tarakai is an ancient settlement site located in the Bannu District of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, Pakistan. It was occupied from approximately 5000 BC to 2500 BC. Excavations have shown that the settlement at Sheri Khan Tarakai was a small village, populated at any one time by perhaps a few hundred people who lived in mud-walled houses, some of which had stone foundations and flat roofs made of wattle and daub. It is unlikely that the whole area of the identified site was occupied at one time. Location Sheri Khan Tarakai is located 17 km southwest of Bannu City. Bannu District makes up a part of the topographic region known as the Bannu basin, which sits adjacent to the hills of Afghanistan and Waziristan to the west and the Indus River floodplain on the east. Rehman Dheri, a contemporary site, is located about 100 km to the south, also in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province. Excavations The site of Sheri Khan Tarakai was discovered in 1985 by members of the Bannu Archaeological Project, and it is the oldest known village settlement in the Bannu region. Archaeological excavations were carried out at the site for five seasons between 1986 and 1990. Bannu Archaeological Project The Bannu Archaeological Project was a collaboration involving the Pakistan Heritage Society, University College London, The British Museum, Bryn Mawr College and the University of Cambridge. The Project explored in Bannu District, North-West Frontier Province, Pakistan between 1985 and 2001. Numerous Early Historic and Later Prehistoric sites were discovered. The Project established that Sheri Khan Tarakai is actually the second oldest village farming settlement in south Asia. Lewan settlement Between 1995 and 2001, the project also explored the Chalcolithic site of Lewan, Bannu. This site was occupied in both the Tochi-Gomal and Kot Diji phases, so it's important for understanding the rise of complex societies in the NWFP in late prehistory. Both the radiocarbon chronology and the material assemblage indicate that Lewan was continuously occupied throughout the fourth and third millennia (4000-2000 BC). The range of industrial activities recorded here suggests that it was a village settlement comparable to those at Tarakai Qila, Tarakai Ghundai and Islam Chowki - all in Bannu Basin area. There's evidence of bead manufacture, and pottery production at the site -- similar to all other sites of this period in the Bannu basin. Akra, Bannu The Early Historic site of Akra, Bannu was also explored.