Categories - Archaeologs

Ancient Pottery

Sacred Ceremonies

Ancient Languages

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Laga Oda

Rock shelter near Harar in southeastern Ethiopia. A long sequence of occupation has been dated, commencing around the 14th millennium be, with an industry of small blades including numerous backed elements. This industry appears to have continued into the 2nd millennium ad. Bones of domestic catt...

La Ferrassie

A rock shelter in the Dordogne, southwest France. It has a long series of deposits from Mousterian at the base, including several layers of ‘Ferrassie’ type or Charentian with Levallois flaking, through a long series of Upper Palaeolithic levels. These are Perigordian I, Aurig-nacian I to IV, and...

Laetoli

[formerly Laetolil]. A site in Tanzania, part of the same group of Pleistocene and Pliocene deposits as Olduvai Gorge some 40 km to the north. No stone tools are found, but remains of about a dozen hominids are known. They date from some 3.5 to 4 million years ago; along with Hadar they have been...

Laeti

Latin term used under the later Roman Empire (from the 3rd century ad onwards) of barbarians who were settled as fanners by the Roman government, in areas deserted after intrusive raids. They had an obligation, inherited by their descendants, to perform Roman military service.

Lac-Viet

[Chinese Lo Yiieh]. Earliest ethnic name of the people of present northern Vietnam, in Chinese sources. Etymologically unknown, it also appears in the name of the kingdom of Au-Lac in the 3rd century bc.

Lac-Viet

archaeologsOthers

Lacquer

The juice of the lac tree, Rhus verni-cifera, a natural varnish which hardens on exposure to air. Applied in many coats to a core made of wood, fabric, or cloth-covered wood, it forms a tough and durable protective surface, resistant to water and capable of a high polish. In China lacquered vesse...

Lachish

The biblical city of Lachish has been identified as the site of the large tell of Tell ed Duweir, west of Hebron in southern Israel. Early excavations in the 1930s were brought to a halt by the tragic murder by bandits of the director, J.L. Starkey, in 1938. New excavations in the 1970s were cond...

EnglishAncient Pottery

La Chapelle

The small cave of La Chapelle aux Saints is in the Correze department of southwest France. In 1908 a skeleton of Neanderthal man was found here buried in a level of Mousterian (Quina) type. In a famous study by Marcellin Boule, it was made the type specimen of Homo neanderthalensis, supposedly an...

Labret

A decorative plug inserted into a ready-made incision in the lower lip, like earrings in pierced ears. Although styles vary and labrets were particularly popular in Mesoamerica, they occur in artefact inventories from the Arctic to the Andes. They are made from almost any material that is suitabl...

Laang Spean

A cave in western Cambodia which has yielded a Hoabinhian sequence with an appearance of ground stone tools and pottery by perhaps 4300 be. Hoabinhian tool forms may have continued in use here into the 1st millennium ad.

Jutes

The Germanic tribe who inhabited the southern part of the Jutland peninsula in the early centuries ad. According to Bede, they settled in Kent, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight after the 5th-century invasions of Britain. Unfortunately, the Jutes have proved particularly difficult to trace in the a...

Jutes

archaeologsOthers

Juodkrante

An industrial site of the Baltic Early Bronze Age, located on the shores of the Baltic in western Lithuania and dated to the mid-2nd millennium be. An amber-processing workshop was found there in the 19th century, with half-finished pendants and beads, presumably produced for the Bronze Age amber...

Judeirjo-Daro

A town of the Harappan civilization in Kachi province, Pakistan. The site has not been excavated, but seems to be very large: it occupies c25 hectares, which makes it the third largest settlement of this civilization, after Mohenjo-Daro and Har-appa. Surface investigation suggests that both pre-H...

Judeidah

A tell site in the Amuq plain of northern Syria. Excavations by the Oriental Institute of Chicago University in the 1930s on this and other sites on the plain established the basic prehistoric sequence for the area.

Jorwe

A Chalcolithic site in southern India, consisting of several mounds, but representing a single period of occupation, related to the Malwa complex further north. Metal was in use, but a stone industry based on blades, some microlithic, also occurred. Typical Jorwe pottery is a hard-fired wheel-mad...

Jordanova

[Jordanow], A settlement and cemetery site in Lower Silesia, southern Poland, which has given its name to a regional group of the Late Neolithic Lengyel culture. The settlement had timber houses which were trapezoidal in plan. Cemeteries contain grave goods which include many ornaments and some t...

Jordanova

archaeologsOthers

Jomon

A Japanese word for ‘cord mark’, used to describe all pre-YAYOi pottery; the term is also used to describe a period from about 10,000 bc to 300 bc and all the archaeological remains of this period. There are over 10,000 Jomon sites, and hundreds of pottery types have been defined. These are arran...

Jincun

[Chin-ts’un]. village near Luoyang in Henan province, China, where rich tombs robbed around 1930 yielded 5th-2nd century bc carved jades and inlaid bronze ritual vessels, many of which are now in Western collections. Excavations in the Luoyang area since 1930 have unearthed little that is compara...

Jih-Nan

The southernmost commandery of the Han Chinese empire, situated in the central part of present Vietnam. It was in its southernmost sub-prefecture, that of Hsiang-lin, corresponding roughly to the southern part of the present Vietnamese province of Thu’a-thien, that a native official founded in 19...

Jih-Nan

archaeologsOthers

Jiangling

[Chiang-ling]. A city in Hubei province on the north bank of the Yangzi River, China. Scattered Western Zhou finds have been made in the Jiangling district but far more important are extensive Eastern Zhou and Han remains associated with the Chu culture. The walled city of Ji’nan just outside pre...

Jhukar

A site in Sind province, Pakistan, which has given its name to a prehistoric culture of the 2nd millenium BC. At the type site and at Amri and Chanhu-Daro, levels of the Jhukar culture succeed those of the Harappan Civilization; indeed, some authorities regard Jhukar as a late version of the Hara...

EnglishPlace Names

Jerusalem

City sited on the Judaean hills, occupied for more than 4000 years and now the capital of Israel. Many excavations have taken place since the 1860s, but because of the long history of destruction and rebuilding on the site, it has been difficult to reconstruct the development of the city. Sporadi...

EnglishPlace Names, Ancient Cities

Jericho

Known today as Tell es-Sultan, Jericho lies in an oasis in the Jordan Valley north of the Dead Sea, on a main east-west route. Its long stratigraphy documents almost continuous occupation from before 9000 be to cl580 bc. At the base of the tell was a Natuf-ian deposit, associated with a rectangul...

EnglishPlace Names, Ancient Cities

Jemdet Nasr

[Jamdat Nasr]. Site between Baghdad and Babylon in southern Iraq which has given its name both to a painted ware characterized by red and black designs on a buff ground, and to the period when this pottery was in use. This period falls between the Uruk phase and the Early Dynastic Period and is u...

EnglishPlace Names

Jellinge Style

An art form that takes its name from the Viking site at Jellinge. Much Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian art from the 9th century until the mid-11th century is characterized by animal ornament and zoomorphic motifs, which are usually disjointed, stylized and entirely abstract. This kind of decoration ...

EnglishArtifacts, Ancient Pottery

Jellinge

A site in East Jutland which seems to be the remains of a 10th-century royal palace and burial ground of some importance. Two large barrows have been excavated; one contained a wooden burial chamber and the other nothing. In the cemetery area stand fifty bauta stones, which are part of a ship mon...

EnglishPlace Names

Jefferson

(1743-1826). As well as his many other achievements, the third President of the USA has a claim to being one of the world’s first scientific excavators. In 1784 he excavated a prehistoric burial mound on his own land in Virginia. He noted that the burials occurred in a number of different levels ...

Jefferson

archaeologsOthers

Jebel Uweinat

A complex of rocky hills in the eastern Sahara, close to the modem borders of Egypt, Libya and Sudan. Many rock shelters show signs of prehistoric occupation, including abundant rock art. The latter is of particular interest in view of representations of various creatures, including giraffe and o...

Jebel Moya

Excavated in the early years of the 20th century, Jebel Moya lies in the Blue Nile province of the Sudan, some 60 km east of Jebel et Tomat. Before the excavation of the latter site, the enormous amount of material recovered frm Jebel Moya was difficult to interpret. Both are now seen as settleme...

Jebel Et Tomat

A settlement site between the Blue and the White Nile near Sennar in the central Sudan. Small-scale excavations have indicated that sorghum was under cultivation by the site’s inhabitants by the 3rd century ad. Covering some five hectares, the site was occupied through the first five centuries of...

Java Man

A convenient term for the fossil men, now attributed to Homo erectus, from various localities in east and central Java, dating from c2 to 0.5 million years ago, or the early to middle Pleistocene.

Java

Prehistory. A major island of Indonesia, best known for its remains of Homo erectus (2,000,000 bc to c300,000 bc). Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures are known but still poorly understood. See Gua Lawa, Pacitanian, Sambungmacan, Sangiran, Solo, Trinil. Classical. From the 5th century ad a number o...

Jaszdozsa

An earlier Bronze Age tell settlement near Szolnok, in the Tisza valley of eastern Hungary. Thick occupation layers of the Hatvan and Fuzesabony groups have been found, with well-preserved domestic architecture. Complete rectangular Hatvan house plans have internal divisions with several hearths,...

Jarrow

The twin monasteries of Monkwearmouth and Jarrow in Co. Durham are two of the most interesting Middle Saxon sites in England. The historian Bede lived and worked at Jarrow and tells us most about its history. Jarrow was founded on the banks of the River Tyne by Bishop Benedict Biscop a few years ...

Jarmo

The type site of the Jarmoan culture, situated in the Zagros mountains in Iraqi Kurdistan. The settlement, of the Aceramic Neolithic, has a range of radiocarbon dates, of which the earliest is c6500 be, and has produced important evidence for early farming in this area. The population cultivated ...

EnglishPlace Names

Jarlshof

A coastal settlement on the island of Shetland, and one of the richest and most complex archaeological sites in Britain. Stone buildings date to the Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age periods and show continuous occupation throughout the Dark Ages. During the 9th century Jarlshof was settled by a...

Jamestown

The first successful British settlement in America, Jamestown was founded in 1607 by 105 settlers and served for a time as the capital of Virginia. James Fort, as it was first called, was built 15 miles inland from the Chesapeke Bay, on a swampy island in the James River on the site of previous n...

Jam

A remote valley of the Hari Rud in western Afghanistan, where a spectacular tower, inscribed with the name of the Ghorid ruler Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad b. Sam (1153-1203) was discovered in 1957. The tower is 65 metres high and built of brick. It has an octagonal base and four cylindrical tiers, ea...

Jaina

A Late Classic Maya necropolis located on a tidal island 50 km north of Campeche in the Gulf of Mexico, Jaina is famous for its high-quality portrait figurines. Its two ceremonial centres at Zayosal and El Zacpool, built of uncut stone and stucco, are clearly of minor importance. The finest of th...

Jadeite

A rare mineral, one of two distinct minerals which may be described as jade. Much of the jadeite prized as a precious stone is green, but the mineral varies widely in colour. One form of jadeite which varies from green to black in colour is sometimes called chloromelanite. Sources of jadeite are ...

Jade

A general term for a precious stone from which jewellery and other decorative work may be made. The word jade is today applied to two minerals, nephrite and jadeite, which often look similar: greenish in colour, hard and translucent. Although sometimes found in prehistoric Europe and other areas,...

Jabrud

Several rock shelters at Jabrud in the Anti-Lebanon hills of Syria were excavated in the 1930s and seem to provide a long lower, middle and upper Palaeolithic sequence of over 30 layers. The precise significance of the various suggested cultures (Jabrudian, Pre-Aurignacian, Nebekian etc) is far f...

EnglishPlace Names

Iwo Eleru

A rock shelter in the forest zone of southwestern Nigeria which has yielded the longest dated sequence of microlithic industries yet investigated in West Africa. Occupation was established by the 10th millennium be and the chipped stone industry continued for as long as 8000 years with only minor...

Iwajuku

An archaeological site in Japan, about 90 km north of Tokyo. The 1949 excavation by Meiji University, following the site’s discovery by an amateur a few years earlier, provided the first convincing evidence that the Japanese islands were occupied by man during Palaeolithic times. Among the stone ...

EnglishPlace Names

Ivory

A material derived from a greatly enlarged tooth, or tusk, often belonging originally to an elephant, but sometimes from other animals, such as walrus or narwhal. It has been used since the Upper Palaeolithic for tools, artwork and other artefacts.

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