Loftus

(18217-58). One of the early excavators in Mesopotamia. In the 1850s he excavated several sites, including Uruk. The main object of the excavations was to collect antiquities, some of which were transported back to the British Museum.

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Loftus

Loess

Fine wind-blown deposit, which forms wide spreads in Europe, Asia and North America. Wind erosion was widespread in the periglacial zone that surrounded the large Quaternary ice-sheets. Material was picked up by the wind from the large expanses of proglacial deposits at the ice-sheet margins. Ero...

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Lodose

A small abandoned trading-site in southwest Sweden, and the forerunner of Gothenburg. Investigations brought to light a range of later medieval imported pots from Britain, western France and Denmark, which reveal the port’s importance in North Sea trade at the time of the Hanseatic League.

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Lodose

Loddekopinge

An important settlement near Lund in southern Sweden, dating to the Viking period. Excavations have shown that in the 9th-10th centuries this was probably the site of a fair, to which both native and alien traders came. Plentiful evidence of Slavic traders, for instance, has come to light and it ...

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Lock-Ring

Small bronze or gold pennanular ring found in the Bronze Age of northern Europe; they may have been used for decorating the hair.

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Lock-Ring

Loch Lomond Stadial

Stadial of the Dev-ensian cold stage which occurred between 11,000 and 10,000 bp. Small glaciers were formed in the high mountains of Wales and the Lake District and an ice-cap was formed over the highlands of Scotland. The Loch Lomond stadial may be correlated with Godwin’s pollen zone III and t...

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Loam

A particular texture in soil. When used in soil science, the term has no implications of colour, organic content, or any property other than texture.

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Llano

The earliest Paleo-Indian Big Game Hunting culture. Its chief diagnostic trait is the presence of Clovis materials (especially the fluted point) in association with mammoth remains. Typically, sites are located in what was once a boggy lakeshore environment. The type site is located in the easter...

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Llama

A relative of the camel, the llama was the principal beast of burden in prehistoric Andean societies, although it was also exploited to a lesser extent for its wool and meat. The first clear evidence of its domestication (dating to the Initial Period) comes from ceremonial burials in the Viru Val...

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Liyu

[Li-yii]. A village near Hunyuan in northern Shanxi, China, where a large hoard of bronzes of the 6th and 5th centuries bc was found in 1923. The name Liyu has since been applied to a style of decoration shared by many bronzes from the hoard and characterized by an interlace of dragons, whose rib...

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Liulige

[Liu-li-ko]. A town in Hui Xian, Henan province, China, where many burials of the Shang and Eastern Zhou periods have been excavated. The Shang burials, some containing bronze ritual vessels, belong to the Erligang phase. Eastern Zhou finds at Liulige range in date from the 7th to the 2nd century...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Little Woodbury

Palisaded farmstead of the Iron Age (probably beginning in the 4th century bc) located on Salisbury plain, southern England. Excavations by Gerhard Bersu in 1938-9 were among the first to employ the open area approach to prehistoric sites and the results achieved make this still a classic excavat...

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Lisicici

Refers to a Late Neolithic culture in southern Bosnia, Yugoslavia, dated to the 4th millennium bc. Only the type site, in a steep valley in mountainous terrain, has been widely excavated. The subsistence economy is based as much on hunting as on cattle husbandry and scanty structural remains are ...

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Lipari

The largest of the Aeolian islands of the Tyrrhenian Sea north of Sicily. Lipari was important in prehistory because it possessed a source of the much-prized volcanic glass, obsidian; later in prehistory it remained important because of its strategic position, which allowed communities positioned...

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Lion

The lion, Panthera (Felis) leo is today restricted to the open savanna and plains of Africa south of the Sahara. Previously it inhabited much of Europe as well, and even in the 19th century its range covered most of Africa and large areas of southwestern Asia. Fossils of lion occur in European ca...

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Lin-Yi

A kingdom founded in 192 in the southernmost part of the Han Chinese commandery of Jih-nan in present central Vietnam. Later it became known as the Ind-ianized kingdom of Champa, which was eventually absorbed by Vietnam in the course of its expansion into the southern part of the Indochinese Peni...

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Lin-Yi

Linyi

[Lin-i]. A county in southern Shandong province, China. In the past decade, at least ten important Western Han tombs have been excavated in this district, some richly furnished with paintings on silk and lacquers comparable to those from Mawangdui. A tomb excavated in 1972 at Linyi Yinqueshan con...

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Lingyuan Xian Haidaoyingzicun

[Ling-yüan-hsien Hai-tao-ying-tzu-ts’unJ. The designation sometimes given to the provenance of a Western Zhou bronze hoard from Kezuo Xian, Liaoning province, China. See Yan.

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Lingyuan Xian Haidaoyingzicun

Lingtai

[Ling-t’ai]. County in eastern Gansu province, China, where nine Western Zhou tombs and a chariot burial were excavated in 1967 and 1972. Two well-preserved tombs contained bronze ritual vessels, jades, and a wide variety of bronze weapons including four short swords. Lingtai is just across the b...

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Lingtai

Linear Pottery Culture

The English name for the German Linienbandkeramik (or LBK for short) culture, sometimes also known as the Danubian I culture. It denotes the first farming culture in central Europe, dated <4500-4000 be in its core area, lasting as late as 3200 be on its periphery. The Linear Pottery core area of ...

archaeologsEnglishCultures

Lindisfarne Gospel

This gospel book, written out and painted by the order of Eadfrith, Bishop of Lindisfarne between 698 and 721, is one of the most splendid Early Christian manuscripts from the British Isles. Its sumptuous decoration shows a slight weakening of the great Irish tradition (see Book Of Kells), but it...

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Lindisfarne

Island off the coast of Northumberland, northeast England. In 634 King Oswald gave the island to St Aidan and other monks from Iona to found a monastery. The foundation followed the Irish pattern until the Synod of Whitby (664), when Lindisfarne relinquished its Celtic traditions and embraced the...

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Lindholme Heje

A site on the northern shore of Limfjord in Jutland, used as a grave-field from the prehistoric period until the Viking era. In the 11th century it was overlaid by a Viking village. Extensive excavations, combined with documentary references, suggest that during the 11th century Lindholm Hoje fun...

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Lindholme Heje

Lincoln

[Roman Lindum]. An important Roman colonia in eastern England on the main Roman route north. The site on raised ground above the River Witham relates to the intersection of two principal Roman roads, the Fosse Way and Ermine Street. Limestone of good quality was available from a local quarry. The...

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Limes

[Latin: ‘cross-path’ or ‘baulk between fields’]. The term limes came to mean a military road with forts and watchtowers, and ultimately a frontier. From the 1st century ad, as imperial boundaries gradually stabilized, frontiers gained permanent garrisons. From the time of Hadrian (117-138) the li...

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Lifan

[Li-fan]. Type site northwest of Chengdu, China, of a local culture of western Sichuan province characterized by slate cist burials. Grave goods suggest that the Lifan culture flourished in the late Eastern Zhou and early Han periods and point to very wide-ranging contacts, including metropolitan...

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Li Ding

[li-ting]. A name sometimes given to lobed tripods intermediate in shape between li and ding vessels.

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Li Ding

Liangzhu

[Liang-chu]. Type site near Hangzhou, China, of the Liangzhu culture. Represented at many sites in northern Zhejiang, southern Jiangsu, and Shanghai, Liangzhu is a continuation of the Majiabang culture of the same region. Seven radiocarbon dates range from c3300 to c2250 BC. The Liangzhu jade ind...

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Liangzhu

Lezoux

Site in Puy-de-Dôme, central France. Important centre for the production of terra sigillata or ‘Samian’ pottery from the 1st to the 4th centuries. Neither the ancient name nor the detailed development of the site is known, but Lezoux appears to be an example of an industrial vicus. Excavation has...

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Lezoux

Levkas

One of the Ionian islands off the west coast of Greece, where excavations by DOrpfeld revealed occupation in several prehistoric periods: Neolithic settlement in the Chirospilia Cave and groups of Early and Middle Bronze Age burials in several locations. The Early Bronze Age burials were crematio...

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Level

A surveying instrument, used in conjunction with a graduated staff to determine height differences. The term is also used to refer to the actual height measurements taken with such an instrument. More generally, archaeologists often use the term ‘level’ interchangeably with layer.

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Levanzo

A cave in the Egadi Islands off Sicily with fine engravings of animals. It belongs to the Roman elli an group of cl0,000 be.

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Levalloiso-Mousterian

This name has been used for the Mousterian cultures found at Mount Carmel and other east Mediterranean sites. It was once thought that Levallois flakes signified a Levalloisian culture, while side scrapers indicated a Mousterian culture, and when the two were found together it was tempting to cal...

archaeologsEnglishCultures

Levallois

Levallois flake is a kind of special flake removed from a prepared core, sometimes a tortoise core. It took its name from a suburb of northern Paris, where an early example was found. In a more general way, the term ‘Levallois technique’ is used to describe this method of flaking. The concept of ...

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Levallois

Leubingen

An early Bronze Age chieftain’s burial of the Un£tice culture in Saxony, Germany. It consisted of a lean-to wooden mortuary chamber under a stone cairn, itself covered by a barrow c34 metres in diameter. Inside was the burial of an extended elderly male and, place at right angles across him, a se...

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Lej

A small open settlement of the Early Neolithic Cri§ culture, the Rumanian regional variant of the First Temperate Neolithic, with later Boian and Gumelnita occupation levels. Located in the upper Olt Valley and dated typologically to the early 5th millennium be, LeJ is a rare example of a multi-l...

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Lej

Les Eyzies

This village on the Vezere River near the centre of the Dordogne, southwest France, is a natural centre of the rich sites left by prehistoric man in the limestone zone called the Perigord. The chateau and National Museum contains many important finds and underneath it there is a small Magdalenian...

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Les Combarelles

A narrow tortuous cave just outside Les Eyzies in the Dordogne, southwest France, where a large series of engravings of Palaeolithic animals was discovered in 1901. Breuil regarded this cave as one of the ‘six giants’ of cave art.

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