An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology v1.c9.s17.102

v1.c9.s17.102

*4.17.9 S. region.* The three elements of the intrusive Iron Age culture that supplanted the pastoral Neolithic culture of the lower Deccan [4.6.9] and s. peninsular India [4.6.10], especially Tamil Nadu, by the second quarter of the 1st millennium B.C., if not earlier, and became the prime mover of the early historic social consolidation of this region, with the initial line of impact somewhere in upper Karnataka, are: (a) a puissant iron technology; (b) the social communities utilizing a distinctive ceramic [11.15.3], which had perhaps an even earlier history in many parts of the country; and (c) the megalithic architecture for funerary purposes—all the three fusing into one homogeneous matrix in the middle of the 1st millennium B.C. Insofar as the burial practices are concerned, there is enough evidence to show that the Neolithic people practised extended articulate burials under habitation floors. This mode was given up by the Iron Age communities in favour of secondary fractional burials, in more conspicuous separate necropolises away from habitation sites. In Tamil Nadu the megalithic culture gets well-permeated throughout, except Dts N. Arcot, Salem and Madurai, already by the 3rd century B.C. at the latest, one of its invariable features being a separate necropolis, with an exceptionally rich array of defensive and agricultural iron implements. The characteristic ceramic, the black-and-red ware, has by now become standardized in fabric and shape and indeed shows stages of devolution. These features continue up to and perhaps beyond the period of Indo-Roman trade and its cultural impact. Overlapping with this terminal period Tamil Nadu develops a rich literary lagacy, perhaps born of consolidated social stamina.