Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (402 page)

The stone or metal top of a
MACE
, usually perforated. In 1968 Fiona Roe published a classification of British late Neolithic stone maceheads, recognizing five main groups: ovoid; Maesmore group; flint nodule type; Thames pestle; and Orkney pestle.

 
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A Latin term for a market–place for perishable foods, especially meat, consisting of shops around a colonnaded court. The central building was usually either round or octagonal. Some more sophisticated examples have individual architectural features associated with them, for example a porticoed and enclosed rectangular courtyard, with one or two colonnaded pavilions in the central area.

 
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MacEnery , Father J.
(1796–1841)
[Bi].

A Roman Catholic priest known for his excavations at Kent's Cavern, England, between 1825 and his death in 1841. Here he discovered Palaeolithic flint tools alongside the bones of extinct animals in an undisturbed stratum. He concluded that man and these ancient animals must have coexisted, but these views found little acceptance at the time; indeed Dean Buckland argued very strongly against MacEnery's interpretations claiming instead that ‘ancient Britons’ had cut ovens in the stalagmite layer that sealed the Palaeolithic layers and that the implements had penetrated the stalagmite only through these holes. Unfortunately, MacEnery died without publishing his results, a task completed by William Pengelly in 1869.
[Bio.: J. J. Walsh , 1926,
These splendid priests
. New York: J. H. Sears ]

 
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Formative Stage farming culture thriving in coastal Ecuador during the later 2nd and early 1st millennia
bc
. Machalilla ceramics, in contrast to earlier Valdivian wares, are painted (red banded and black on white), and figurines are rare and crudely made. Wattle–and–daub fragments in middens indicate something of the nature of their houses, but no foundations have been defined. These communities appear to be the earliest maize cultivators in this part of South America. Successors to the Valdivia Culture; succeeded by the Chorrera Culture.

 
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See
MURDER HOLE
.

 
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Small Inca centre perched high on a rocky ridge between two peaks at an elevation of 2340m above sea level overlooking a loop of the River Urubamba. The so-called lost city of the Incas (Vilcabamba), Machu Picchu was rediscovered in 1911 by Hiram Bingham , Professor of Archaeology at Yale University.
Defended by a stone wall, Machu Picchu has only one entrance. A stair leads up the hill to the site, and roadways connect it to Cuzco. The construction of the temples and other buildings involved creating level platforms on the hilltop. A sequence of small plazas lies along the ridge, the steep flanking slopes being terraced for houses and cultivation. One of the most extraordinary buildings is a circular astronomical observatory. Houses were rectangular in plan, high gabled, with thatch roofs and trapezoidal doors.
A programme of radiocarbon dating carried out in the late 1980s suggests two main phases to the site: the first, non-Inca, in the 7th century
ad
, and the second spanning the period ad 1200–1450. Some earlier dates of around 1000 bc suggest, however, that the Incas were not the first people to build on the ridge.
[Sum.: H. Bingham , 1930,
Machu Picchu—a citadel of the Incas
. New Haven: Yale University Press; R. Berger
et al.
, 1988, Radiocarbon dating Machu Picchu, Peru.
Antiquity
, 62, 707–10]

 
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