Maeva

Cluster of 25 Polynesian marae on the island of Huahine, Society Islands. Many of the ahu and pavements have been restored, and this is now one of the most visible and impressive marae complexes in Polynesia.

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Maes Howe

A magnificent passage grave on Orkney, north Scotland. It is covered by a circular mound 7 metres high and 35 metres in diameter and surrounded by a ring ditch. The tomb is built entirely of a local stone which splits easily into rectangular slabs, giving an impression of deliberate dressing. The...

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Mad’Arovce

A regional group of the later phase of the Early Bronze Age, distributed in southern Slovakia and dated to the mid-2nd millennium be. A large number of sites are hilltop settlements fortified by earthen banks or ditches. TELL-like multi-phase settlements are also known from lowland valleys, often...

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Mad’Arovce

Madai Caves

These caves in eastern Sabah, northern Borneo, form a large complex like those of Niah, Sarawak. The main excavated cave is Agop Atas, which has produced an industry of early Australian type dated to 8000 years ago, with an upper pottery sequence (above a sterile layer) dated from 500 be to the p...

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Madagascar

This island in the Indian Ocean off the east coast of Africa was one of the last major tropical land masses to be settled by man: there is no evidence for human presence prior to the 1st millenium ad. The Malagasy language contains both African and Indonesian elements; in the recent material cult...

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Lynchet

A step-like feature of the landscape, formed when colluvial material, eroded as a result of ploughing, accumulates downslope against a field boundary. Series of lynchets may develop up hillsides, marking the boundaries of ancient fields.

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Lyell

(1797-1875). Distinguished British geologist who was one of the chief proponents of the Uniformitarian or Fluviatilist school of geology. In marked contrast to the previously dominant Catastro-phist view, this held that all changes which have occurred in the earth’s surface must be explained in t...

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Lyell

Lydia

Small kingdom which appeared in western Turkey in the 1st millennium bc known to the Assyrians as Luddu. By about the 7th century bc it was an important staging post in trade between the Aegean and the oriental civilizations. Its capital at Sardis became rich, exploiting the gold of the nearby Pa...

archaeologsEnglishRegions

Lydenburg

An Early Iron Age site in the eastern Transvaal, South Africa, dated to about the 5th century ad and noteworthy for the discovery of a series of unparalleled terracotta human heads of up to life size.

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Lycia

An area on the southern coast of Turkey which became a kingdom in the 1st millennium bc. Groups identified as Lycians are mentioned in the 14th century bc Amarna letters as pirates in the East Mediterranean, and were later among the Peoples of the Sea who attacked Egypt. Little is known about the...

archaeologsEnglishCultures, Regions

Luzon

See Dimolit, Philippines.

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Luzon

Luwians

[Luvians]. An Indo-Europeanspeaking group in Anatolia, known mainly from references in Hittite records, from the Hittite Old Kingdom onwards. They appearto have migrated into Anatolia, perhaps from the Pontic steppes in southern Russia, in the 3rd millennium bc and spread through western Anatolia...

archaeologsEnglishNations

Luristan

A region of central western Iran, best known for the bronze industry of the area in the early 1st millennium bc (the so-called Luristan bronzes). The area has produced evidence of early farming sites (seeTepe Ganj Dareh, Tepe Asiab, Tepe Guran and Tepe Sarab) and of later prehistoric settlement (...

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Lur

[plural: lurer]. A large horn of the Late Bronze Age of Northern Europe, with examples from Denmark, Sweden, Norway and north Germany. Lurer are among the most elaborate products of the European bronzesmith, made in sections by the lost wax method (see cire perdue), with a long double-curved body...

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Lupemban

A stone industry of western central Africa, where it appears to have developed from a Sangoan predecessor. In its characteristic form, the Lupemban is found in northern Angola and southern Zaire. An important dated occurence is that at Kal-ambo Falls on the Zambia/Tanzania border, while related m...

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Luoyang

[Lo-yang]. A city in Henan province, China. A few Shang burials have been found at Luoyang but the site evidently had little importance until the Zhou dynasty established a subsidiary capital there, Cheng Zhou, during the reign of the second Western Zhou king (cl000 bc; see Zhou capitals). Even s...

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Luoyang

Lunula

Crescent-shaped chest-ornament of sheet-gold made in Ireland, Scotland and perhaps Wales during the Early Bronze Age; examples found elsewhere in northern Europe were probably traded from Britain. They were usually decorated with fine incised lines or in relief by the repoussé technique; the form...

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Luni

A small but prosperous Roman town on the Ligurian coast of north Italy that specialized in the trade of marbles quarried at nearby Carrara. However, small excavations in the centre of the abandoned classical town have revealed a sequence of post-classical phases that illustrates Luni’s 5th- and 6...

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Lungshanoid

A term coined to describe Neolithic cultures that supposedly evolved out of the final stage of the Yangshao (see Miaodigou); spread to the east coast of China, there forming the east-coast Neolithic (see Longshan, sense 2); and in Henan, Shaanxi, and Gansu evolved into the Longshan cultures of th...

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Lungshanoid

Lumbini

The birthplace of the Buddha, in northeast India. Archaeological finds include Northern Black-polished ware, which was in use during the period of the Buddha’s lifetime. In 249 bc the emperor Asoka made a pilgrimage to Lumbini — and other Buddhist holy sites — and set up a commemorative pillar wh...

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Lukenya Hill

An inselberg in southern Kenya, southeast of Nairobi. Numerous rock shelters and other sites have preserved a long sequence of prehistoric occupation ranging in date from the ‘Middle Stone Age’ to the later Iron Age. A backed microlith industry was established by the 16th millennium be and probab...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Lugdunum

See Lyons.

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Lugdunum

Lubna

The type site for a regional group of the earlier Bronze Age Trzciniec culture, the Lubna group is distributed in central Poland in the early 2nd millennium be. Stratified settlement sites are rare, with many sites constructed in sandy areas. One of the best-preserved cemeteries is the type site,...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names, Architectural

Lubna

Lubaantun

A Late Classic Maya centre, located on the Rio Grande in southern Belize [formerly British Honduras]. Built in the early 8th century on a ridge in the foothills of the Maya Mountains, a considerable amount of fill (3000 cubic metres) was required to alter the topography sufficiently to allow the ...

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Luangwa Variant

Facies of the Sangoan industry found in gravel deposits of the Luangwa and tributary valleys of eastern Zambia, marked by large picks and other core tools made from water-rounded cobbles. No assemblages have been excavated in situ, nor has the industry been dated.

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Luangwa Variant

Luangwa Tradition

The general designation applied to a widespread later Iron Age pottery tradition which is attested in much of eastern, central and northern Zambia from the 11th century ad and has continued into recent times.

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Lowasera

A site lying on an old beach line, 80 metres above the present water-level on the eastern shore of Lake Turkana (formerly Lake Rudolf) in northern Kenya. The beach was formed between the 9th and the 4th millennia be, during a period when the lake waters stood at a high level and apparently mainta...

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Lovelock Cave

Late Archaic site in the Humbolt Lake region of west-central Nevada, USA, for which a dating scheme covering the period 2500 be to ad 500 has been developed. 40 pits containing a total of over 20,000 artefacts indicate that this site was a cache or storage place rather than a living community. Ev...

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Loulan

[Lou-Ian]. A Chinese military outpost in Eastern Turkestan (modern Xinjiang province), founded in the mid-3rd century. Documents of the 3rd and 4th centuries and silk fabrics have been found there.

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Lough Gur

Lake in Co. Limerick, Ireland, surrounded by a great concentration of prehistoric sites, including stone circles, megalithic tombs, Neolithic hut foundations and a crannog. One circle, measuring o46 metres in diameter, was constructed of stones set edge to edge; Beaker pottery, which had been del...

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Lothal

An important port site of the Harap-pan civilization, situated not in the Indus Valley itself, but in Gujarat near the head of the Gulf of Cambay. The town originally covered cl 2 hectares, and was surrounded by a wall; later it expanded outside the wall to cover 24-5 hectares. It had a fortified...

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Lothagam

Site at the south end of Lake Turkana (formerly Lake Rudolf) in Kenya. Jaw fragments of what is thought to be a hominid come from deposits some 5-6 million years old (at the Miocene-Pliocene boundary). The main importance of this discovery is that it fills the supposed ‘gap’ in the human evolutio...

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Los Millares

A defended settlement site in Almeria, southeast Spain, which has given its name to the local Copper Age culture of the 3rd millennium be. Excavations at the turn of the century demonstrated that the site was defended by a stone wall with semicircular bastions, enclosing approximately five hectar...

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Loro Jonggrang

Monument of the Pram-banan group in the region of Yogyakarta in central Java, Indonesia, built c913 by king Daksha as the funerary temple of his predecessor, king Balitung. The largest monument of the group, it is particularly known for its lively Brahmanic relief scenes.

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural

Loro Jonggrang

Longshan

[Lung-shan]. A county in Shandong province, China, where a Neolithic site at Chengziyai was excavated in 1930-31. The name Longshan has since been applied in three distinct ways to Chinese Neolithic cultures: (1) It refers to the culture of the Chengziyai type site, often distinguished as the Cla...

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Longmen

[Lung-men]. A large complex of Buddhist cave temples near Luo yang, China, begun in ad 495 under the sponsorship of the Northern Wei dynasty (see Yungang). Construction of temples and images was most active during the first three decades of the 6th century and again in the Tang dynasty from about...

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Long House

Many prehistoric societies in Europe lived in timber long houses. Among the most famous are those of the linear pottery culture, which reach lengths of up to 40 metres. In the later prehistoric and postRoman periods, the term long house is used to describe a rectangular, aisled building incorpora...

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Long House

London

[Roman Londinium]. Capital town of Roman Britain by about 100 ad, probably in replacement for an originally intended capital at Colchester. The site, on a previously unoccupied gravel plateau on the north side of the River Thames, was probably chosen as the lowest crossing point at the time of th...

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Lombards

Tribe of Germanic descent who conquered northern Italy in the late 6th and early 7th centuries. The region was already weakened by the Gothic wars and was left vulnerable in 565 by the death of the Emperor Justinian, encouraging another phase of invasions. Led by their king Alboin, the Lombards c...

archaeologsEnglishNations

Lomas

In the period <6500-2500 be seasonally occupied camps were set up several kilometres from the sea in the coastal plain of central Peru. In the winter months, precipitation in the form of fog changed this virtual desert into a fertile area of seed-producing grasses. Highland hunters (see Lauricoch...

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