An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology v1.c9.s17.107

v1.c9.s17.107

Stone circles are found mainly above 1830 m elevation in the n.-w. Nilgiris. Some of the excavated remains from the Coonoor area are to be seen in the British Museum. There are other sites with multiple circles. One such near Kota village on ‘the seven fort hill’ consists of seven piled stone circles, with the slabs of the circle held by the stone pile outside. In some areas stone circles are accompanied by burial cists with port-holes. Pottery figurines of human beings, animals and birds and pots with bird, animal or human lid or finial are common on the surface. Grave goods include bronze, iron, gold or semiprecious stone articles, left in or close to cinerary urn burials further down. Stone circles yield light red to buff wheel-made pottery, thus differing from the black-and-red ware typical of the s. Indian megaliths. Leshnik (1970) made a study and concluded that they were built by pastoralists in the 3rd to 5th century A.D. ¹⁴C dating for a site near PYKARA by Hockings is A.D. 1040. In contrast to the Anamalai dolmens, the Nilgiri dolmens, s. of the Palghat Gap, are generally smaller. Dolmens are found at a number of sites like CHAKATAKAMBAI, KENGARAI, KAGGUCCHI, KILKUNDAH, CHENNA COONOOR and DOOAMANAI-HATTI. The last has a ten-orthostat dolmen and three composite capstones. The Nilgiri dolmens often have sculptured orthostats, KAVILORAI having the largest number of these. The five different tribals, Toda, Badaga, Kota, Kurumbas and Irulas perhaps diversified the megalithic types into cist, dolmen and stone circle subtypes ranging in time from the 1st to the 10th century.