Others

Leczyic

Leang Tuwo Mane’E

A coral limestone rock shelter on the coast of Karakellang, Talaud Islands, northeastern Indonesia, which has produced a preceramic small blade industry (c3000 bc), followed by the appearance of a Neolithic assemblage by about 2000 bc, probably introduced from the Philippines.

Leang Tuwo Mane’E

Leang Burung

Two rock shelters in the Maros region of southwestern Sulawesi, Indonesia. Shelter 1 has produced a late Toalian assemblage with microliths, Maros points, and pottery, which dates to the 2nd and 1st millennia bc. However, Shelter 2 produced a much older stone tool assemblage, with possible early ...

Leakey

(1903-72). A Kenyan-bom British archaeologist and palaeontologist, who devoted most of his life to unearthing early hominid fossils in east Africa, especially at the site of Olduvai Gorge. Among the important fossils found there were those of Australopithecus boisei (formerly Zinjanthropus) and H...

Leakey

Lead Glaze

The most ubiquitous type of glaze found on medieval European pottery. The process was invented by the Romans, and involves either dusting the unfired vessel with galena (lead ore) or dipping it into a mixture of lead ore and water. Ilie glaze fuses in one firing. Lead glaze reappeared in Europe i...

Lead

A soft metal of very low melting point, which was used in alloys or for pipes, roofing etc. Most lead comes from the ore galena, from which silver may also be extracted. The first evidence for lead-extraction in parts of Europe is the addition of the metal to bronze during the Late Bronze Age. La...

Layer

A unit of stratigraphy. Sediments and soils on an archaeological site are split up into layers by the excavator. In many cases, the boundaries between them are well marked, where deposition of one layer is separated from the next by a clear interval or change in texture, colour or mineralogy. How...

Layard

(1817-94). One of the earliest explorers and excavators in Mesopotamia. Between 1845 and 1851 he excavated at two major sites — Nimrud and Kuyunjik (Nineveh) — and brought back many art objects and architectural pieces to Britain, where they are still to be seen in the British Museum. His popular...

Layard

Lavo

Former name of the present town of Lopburi in central Thailand, the provincial capital of the Khmer empire of Angkor from the 11th to the 13th century. There are several monuments of Khmer origin in the town, notably the Prang Sam Yot. The period is also known as a distinctive style in the art hi...

La Victoria

An early Pre-Classic village site located on the Pacific coastal region of Ocos in Guatemala. The site consists of 10-12 low mounds built on the swampy substrate as platforms for houses. Its earliest phase (Ocos) dates to cl300 be and contains Olmec (or Olmec-influenced) pottery, some of which ha...

La Venta

Large Olmec ceremonial centre of the Middle Pre-Classic located on an island in the swampy lowlands of the Tabasco Province of Mexico. The site is dominated by a large, conical clay pyramid some 110 metres high. There are numerous other low platform mounds, oriented on a north-south axis, which a...

Laussel

Rock shelter near Les Eyzies in the Dordogne, southwest France. A long sequence of Mousterian and Upper Palaeolithic levels was found under the rock shelter, though the investigation was not up to modem standards. The site is best known for its basrelief carvings, especially the female figure hol...

Lausitz

The Lausitz or Lusatian culture represents the northeasterly group of the European Urnfield cultures, occurring in East Germany, Poland and parts of Czechoslovakia. It emerged cl500 bc and survived well into the Iron Age, till c300 bc. Fortified settlements occur, such as the exceptionally well-p...

Laurion

[Roman Laurium]. A hilly area in Attica, Greece, south of Athens and near Cape Sounion (Sunium), which became important when silver-bearing lead ore was discovered there, probably in the 1st millennium bc. The region developed into a principal mining area, especially in the period from about 483 ...

Lauricocha Caves

A series of well-stratified caves of long occupation located in the highlands of central Peru. They are postulated as summer hunting camps, the associated winter locus being the lowlands (see lomas) and are seen as part of the seasonal round typical of the Archaic. A radiocarbon date of c7500 be ...

Lauricocha Caves

Laugerie

On the edge of the village of Les Eyzies in the Dordogne, southwest France and only just above the flood plain of the Vezere River, are a line of rock shelters, of which Laugerie Basse and Laugerie Haute are very important. Laugerie Basse, mainly dug in the 19th century, has a later Magdalenian s...

Laugerie

Laterza

A cemetery of rock-cut tombs near Taranto in southeast Italy which has given its name to a local Copper Age culture of the 3rd millennium be. The tombs were used for collective burial and contained grave goods including a few copper weapons, tools and ornaments, bifacially worked flint arrowheads...

La Tene

Situated on Lake Neuchatel in Switzerland, La Tene is the site of a large votive deposit of bronze, iron and wooden objects found in the shallow water at the edge of the lake and dating to the later Iron Age. It has given its name to the second Iron Age in much of Europe, succeeding the Hallstatt...

La Tene

Late Horizon

Most recent and briefest period of a chronological construction widely used in Peruvian archaeology. Dated 1476-1534, it is the time of Inca power at its height. The early date marks the point at which territorial expansion was virtually complete; the late date marks the passing of control to the...

Lashkari Bazar

Situated on the Helmand Rud, near the site of Bust in Afghanistan, Lashkari Bazar was the winter retreat of the rulers of Ghazni. Bust, which overlooks a river-crossing, has a massive tell, thought to conceal an Achaemenid settlement. It was conquered by the Arabs c661, and the 10th- century writ...

Lascaux

The most famous of all painted caves, Lascaux, near Montignac in the Dordogne, southwest France, was discovered by four boys in 1940. A small number of archaeological finds from inside the cave probably date to the early Magdalenian and include a well-made lamp. A Neanderthal skeleton was found a...

Lartet

(1801-73). A magistrate by training, who abandoned the study of law to become a palaeontologist and one of the pioneer Palaeolithic prehistorians of France. Initially on his own, later with the help of his English banker friend Henry Christy, he excavated many of the famous caves of southwest Fra...

Lartet

Larnian

This name has been given to a Mesolithic culture of Ulster, based on sites at Lough Lame. Recently the use of the term has been criticized and restricted in scope, but it is still sometimes used for the late Mesolithic with large flake blades and Bann points, which are heavy pointed flakes someti...

Larnian

Larnax

[Greek larnax: ‘box, cinerary urn, coffin’]. A terracotta sarcophagus. This kind of coffin enjoyed a brief popularity in the east Greek area <530-460 bc with the ‘Clazom-enian’ examples, which were painted in imitation of contemporary vase styles. Other examples in antiquity are relatively rare.

La Quina

The rock shelter of La Quina in the Charente, southwest France, has revealed Mousterian and Upper Palaeolithic levels with radiocarbon dates. Human remains from the Mousterian include a female and a child skull regarded as of Neanderthal type. The site has given its name to a type of Mousterian a...

Lapis Lazuli

A semi-precious stone of a rich deep blue colour, sometimes flecked with gold. It was a rare commodity, much prized in the ancient Near East, with its main — and possibly only — source situated deep in the mountains of Badakhshan, north Afghanistan. It was widely traded in Mesopotamia, at least f...

Laos

Owing to its rather isolated inland position and recent political conflicts, the prehistory of Laos remains virtually unknown. The best-known sites, investigated in the 1930s, are the megaliths and underground tombs of Hua Pan in the northeast and the more famous Plain of Jars in the northcentre....

Laos

Lan Na

An ancient northern Thai principality, centred around present Chiangmai. Founded in the late 13th century, it first bore the names of Yonarattha, or Yonakarattha (‘kingdom of the Yiion’) or of Bingarattha (‘kingdom of the Mae Ping’) in the Pali chronicles. Recently the name has also been used to ...

Langkasuka

An Indianized state on the Malay Peninsula, the name of which appears (as Lang-ya-hsiu) in a Chinese source of the 6th century, asserting that it was founded 400 years earlier; its name reappears in later Malayan and Javanese chronicles. The kingdom must have been situated astride the Malay Penin...

Lang-Ca

A newly discovered Bronze Age site at the outskirts of the town of Viet-tri in northern Vietnam. With about 350 burials it is the most important site of the Dong-son phase so far discovered in Southeast Asia.

Lang-Ca

Landnam

Term introduced by the Danish palynologist J. Iversen in 1941, meaning ‘landtaking’. It describes fluctuations seen in Danish pollen diagrams, just above the elm decline. Associated with charcoal layers in lake-edge deposits, there is a fall in the pollen of forest trees, a rise in herbaceous pla...

Lan Chang

[Lan Xang]. The earliest kingdom of Laos, founded in 1353. This was the establishment of an eastern branch of the Thai people in a territory which belonged to the by then declining Khmer empire of Angkor. The kingdom was formed by the union of the principalities of Muang Chawa (present-day Luang ...

Lancefield

A small swamp near Keilor, Victoria, Australia, containing bones of an extinct giant fauna representing an estimated 10,000 individuals, dated to c24,000 be. Six species are represented, but Macropus titan bones predominate. A few stone tools have been found in the bone beds indicating that men a...

Lamphun

See Haripunjaya.

Lamphun

Lamoka

An inland site of the late Archaic period located in the Finger Lakes region of central New York, USA. It is characterized by narrow-stemmed points of a type usually associated with coastal areas and by a well-developed industry in worked bone. Other traits include houses framed with upright pole...

Lamoka

La Micoque

The collapsed rock shelter at La Micoque close to Les Eyzies in the Dordogne, southwest France, has a series of early Palaeolithic levels. The uppermost with hand axes is the type assemblage of the Micoquian industry, while the five lower levels are the type series of the Tayacian.

Lambityeco

See Monte Alban, Zapotec.