A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c8.17

c8.17

Many of the South Indian Megaliths show a similarity, seemingly amounting to kinship, with Megaliths in other parts of the world—in the lands bordering upon the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, in the Caucasus, in Iran. The monuments in Europe have yielded Stone Stage implements on the basis of which they have been dated to about 2000 B.C. and the dolmens in the Caucasus area are assigned to a somewhat later date, 1500 B.C. Between Iran and India lies a vast expanse of space without any known trace of Megalithic monuments. While the distribution of Megaliths in the West is coastal, elsewhere, particularly in India, this culture penetrated far into the interior, and they generally contain iron implements. In spite of these rather wide gaps, spatial and chronological, Gordon Childe has suggested that ‘Sialk B (graves in Iran) might be used to link with the west, with the Caucasus or Palestine, the celebrated Indian dolmens; for these too may at least be entered through port-hole slabs.’ He adds: