Lake Hauroko Burial

A 17th-century burial of a Maori woman, found in a cave on an island in Lake Hauroko, southwestern South Island, New Zealand. When found, the skeleton was still sitting on a bier of sticks and wrapped in a woven flax cloak.

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Lake Besaka

Several archaeological sites have been investigated in this area of southeastern Ethiopia. Around the middle of the 2nd millennium be the local stone industries are marked by an increase in the frequency and variety of scrapers. Stone bowls, akin to those of the East African Pastoral Neolithic si...

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Lake Arumpo

A large dried lake bed with a clay lunette, formerly a Pleistocene lake in the Willandra Lakes system, western New South Wales, Australia. A radiocarbon date of 33,600 be has been determined for an occupation layer containing unionid shells and charcoal fragments. See also Lake Mungo.

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Lagozza

A lake village near Milan in north Italy which has given its name to a Late Neolithic culture of the late 4th and early 3rd millennium be. It is characterized by plain dark-surfaced, burnished pottery, usually undecorated; it is thought to be related to the Chassey culture of France and the Corta...

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Lagoa Santa Caves

A system of caves located in the state of Minas Gerais in eastern Brazil with evidence of human occupation during the terminal Pleistocene period. Dolichocephalic human remains and stone tools have been found with bones of extinct fauna such as mastodon, sloth and horse. Although there has been c...

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Lagash

An important city-state of Sumer which flourished during the Early Dynastic, Akkadian and Ur III periods. For many years it was assumed that the site of Telloh, excavated by the French, was the city of Lagash itself, but it is now known that Telloh is ancient Girsu, within the state of Lagash, th...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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.

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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.

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Lac-Viet

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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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.

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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...

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Jutes

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...

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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...

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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.

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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...

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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...

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Jordanova