The Personality of India: Pre- and Proto-historic Foundation of India and Pakistan c14.s1.t7.8

c14.s1.t7.8

The excavations at Brahmagiri gave a tremendous impetus to the study of these problems. While Haimendorf propounded a theory that the megalith builders were Dravidians, because of their coincidence with the present day distribution of Dravidian languages.⁴ D. H. Gordon has discussed the archaeological implications.¹ So we begin with the latter and then discuss the former a little further. Col. Gordon's case may be summarised as follows. The megalithic complex is associated with black-and-red pottery and iron. Prof. Codrington thought, but without stating any particular reasons, that the rock cut tholoi of Malabar (caves) were the earliest. Since Wheeler had dated the megaliths at Brahmagiri to about 200 B.C., Gordon suggested an earlier date for the southern group. As iron appeared to him to be absent in Northern India before 250 B.C., he inferred that iron was earlier in the South. Since Brahmagiri suggested a sudden infiltration of the megalithic folk, Wheeler saw in the collapse of the Mauryan empire, an ideal context for a folk migration into Central Deccan from the South. Accepting the identification of Prof. Haimendorf, Gordon imagined a Chola migration upto the Vindhyas and their rebuff at the hands of the Satavahanas. But the recent evidence does not bear out most of these assumptions. The two crucial criteria of Gordon, viz. the pottery and iron, will be discussed, leaving the more controversial factors.