Mount Do

An open site near Thanh-hoa in northern Vietnam which has yielded a pebble and flake industry with a few bifaces. Russian and Vietnamese authors have suggested Chellean (early Acheulian) affinities, but these are still disputed.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Mount Carmel

There are several important caves on Mount Carmel near Haifa in Israel. Tabun Cave has a long sequence of deposits of Acheulian and Mousterian type; the latter levels include a skeleton of Neanderthal type. The nearly Skhul Cave has burials of eleven individuals, formerly regarded as N eander- th...

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Mould

The earliest moulds for casting metal were made of stone. European early Bronze Age stone moulds consist of one main unit, a depression carved into a flat stone surface. Metal would simply have been poured into this depression to make a casting of the desired shape. Such moulds are often termed o...

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Mould

Motya

[modern San Pantaleo]. One of the three principal centres of Carthaginian Sicily (the other two were at Panormus [Palermo] and Soloeis [Soluntum]). The site lay on a tiny island off the extreme west of Sicily, on the north side of the bay of Stagnone. The settlement was founded as a Phoenician co...

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Motupore

A site on an offshore island near Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, with an excavated sequence from ad 1100-1700, ancestral to the present Austronesian-speaking Motu inhabitants of the region. The sequence documents the development of the specialized ethnographic Motu trading system, in which potte...

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Motte And Bailey

An expedient, quickly erected, medieval fortification consisting of an artificially constructed earthen mound — the motte — with a flattened top, surrounded by a ditch with an adjoining separately defended enclosure, the bailey. Several classic examples of motte and bailey castles are illustrated...

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Motte And Bailey

Mortar

A vessel, usually of stone but sometimes of other materials, used in conjunction with a pestle or grinder for crushing up food. Mortars were frequently made of special rocks, which might be traded over considerable distances. Much study has been devoted to the mortars of the medieval period in Eu...

archaeologsEnglishTools, Ancient Pottery

Moraine

A land form, built up directly by the depositional action of ice. There are many forms of moraine. Flat areas of ‘ground moraine’ are deposited underneath the interior of a moving ice-sheet. ‘Hummocky moraine’ results from the down-melting of stagnant ice. ‘End moraines’ accumulate where the ice ...

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Mootwingee

A rich rock-art site in a range of hills near Broken Hill, western New South Wales, Australia. Human and animal figures in the Panaramitee style were pecked prolifically on rock surfaces. Human figures are represented frontally as stick men, or more fully rounded and carrying barbed spears and bo...

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Monthaillou

This village in the French Pyrenees became famous through the research of Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie into the 13th-century Cathar rising. The modem hamlet nestles around the bottom of a knoll, which is crowned by a small castle. Around the edge of the knoll are the distinctive house-platforms on whi...

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Monthaillou

Montespan

The deep central Pyrenean cave of Ganties-Montespan has traces of probably Magdalenian engravings, but it is mainly famous for a modelled clay body of a life-sized bear or bear cub, probably originally covered with a bear pelt and apparently speared in ritual ceremonies.

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Monteoru

The type site for a long-lasting Bronze Age culture of the Sub-Carpathian zone (south Poland, northeast Rumania), lasting through much of the 2nd millennium be. Ilie type site of Sarata-Monteoru comprises a citadel with a long occupation and four large grave groupings in an adjoining cemetery. Th...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Montelius

(1843-1921). Swedish archaeologist who wrote many books and articles on European prehistory. He worked first on Scandinavian prehistory, dividing the Neolithic into four periods and the Bronze Age into five (divisions which are still retained by many northern prehistorians). He later applied this...

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Montelius

Monte Circeo

The Circeo peninsula in Latium, south of Rome, has several caves with prehistoric remains; Fossellone Cave with several early Upper Palaeolithic levels and Guattari Cave are the most important. In the latter, a Neanderthal skull was found on the Mousterian deposits, and three lower jaws come from...

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Monte Alban

Located in the central Southern Highlands of Mexico, overlooking the valley of Oaxaca, this Zapotec capital is an immense complex of monumental construction. At the heart of the site is a huge plaza (300 by 200 metres) dominated by three central mounds. It is flanked on the east and west by templ...

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural

Monte Alban

Montagu Cave

Located in the Cape Province of South Africa, about 150 km east of Cape Town, this site is one of the very few African caves to have preserved traces of Acheulian occupation. The Acheulian material was at one time stated to be associated with evidence for the use of fire, but this is now discount...

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Mons Badonicus

[Mount Badon]. See Arthur.

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Mons Badonicus

Monreale Cathedral

This magnificent cathedral, 8 km from Palermo, Sicily, was constructed between 1173 and 1186 by William II, the third Norman king of Sicily, and is a splendid reflection both of Norman achievement and the unique nature of Sicilian Romanesque with its combination of Norman, Arab and Greek influenc...

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Mon-Khmer

A linguistic family of southern Asia, comprising Mon, Khmer, and a number of languages of mountain populations in the Indochinese Peninsula as well as of India. According to recent research, Vietnamese is also a member of this family.

archaeologsEnglishAncient Languages