An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology v1.c9.s6.t6: 4.6.9 Lower deccan
An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology v1.c9.s6.t6
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4.6.9 Lower deccan
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The locale of the Neolithic sites in the lower Deccan falls into two regions: (1) the castellated hilly tracts which include settlements at the foothills, e.g. PIKLIHAL, SANGANAKALLU, TEKKALAKOTTA, KODEKAL, etc., and (2) the riverine plains with sites such as T. NARSIPUR and HEMMIGE. Culturally too a distinction can be made between a lower and an upper phase: the former, besides the ceramics, is characterized by the absence of metal and by the presence of pecked and ground stone tools and an incipient blade industry, and the latter, apart from stone tools, by a sporadic occurrence of metal, proliferation of a blade industry and elaborate dwellings.
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Fig. 18. Nagarjunakonda neoliths: 12, surface; 13, 14, Site 46
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The Neolithic settlers were attracted to the hilly regions by favourable environmental conditions, to wit, (1) a wet climate with heavier rainfall than at present, (2) presence of scrub and thorny jungles with some deciduous trees (e.g. teakfruits—*Tectona grandis* from HALLUR), (3) vast pastures of green steppe grass on the hills and valleys, (4) perennial water sources—rivers, streams and springs, (5) plentitude of raw material for tool-making in the dykes and veins, and (6) abundance of game to supplement agricultural products.
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The initial residential settlements involved the selection of a flat area invariably rectangular, either on the top, sides or tail of the hills, levelling and construction of platforms and plugging of crevices with boulders to prevent erosion to make it habitable. The neighbouring rock-shelters served as temporary halting places, e.g. at PIKLIHAL. After the clearance and levelling up of the ground a circular hut was built on a series of bamboo posts with a conical roof of perishable material like grass, analogies existing in the huts of the present-day Boyas of Tekkalakotta. The floors were first levelled flat with boulders and ashy earth. Walls were of wattle and split-bamboo screen plastered with mud. Subsequently the floors had a course of regular spreading of rubble or stone chips levelled with a thin layer of ashy earth or sometimes plastered with lime or mud. The practice of plastering bamboo-screen walls and the nature of the roofs however remained unaltered, as seen at SANGANAKALLU, TEKKALAKOTTA and HALLUR. The house also had a hearth in a corner, sometimes a makeshift arrangement of juxtaposed stones.
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Abundant animal bones exhibiting cut and chop marks or in a charred condition indicate a non-vegetarian diet including roasted meat and marrow. The domestic cattle, buffalo, fowl, goat, deer, gazelle, spotted deer, *barasingha*, pig, bony fish and molluscs were consumed. Bones of the cattle predominate. Charred remains of *kulti* (horsegram, *Dolichos biflorus*, and *uruli*) found at TEKKALAKOTTA *ragi* (*Elusine coracona*), found at HALLUR along with *Elucine indica*, and the great millet (*Holocus sorgum*) found in the KUDUTANI ash mound lead to the conclusion that the diet included agricultural produces as well [2]. The food habit highlights: (1) rearing of large herds of the domesticated cattle; (2) practice of agriculture, probably in the terraces of the hills by the clearance of jungle with stone axes or burning it (slash-and-burn operation) and shifting of soil with weighted digging sticks; and (3) hunting and fishing (spotted deer, gazelle, *barasingha*, wild boar, monitor lizard, common rat, fish and molluscs). Besides, the use of the cattle as draft animals is evidenced by the development of anchylosis of the hock joint observed in the skeletal remains from HALLUR [1].
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Both stone and bone tools were used. The stone artefacts comprise pecked and ground tools and blades and blade derivatives, etc. The first group is manufactured out of igneous or metamorphic rocks—granite, syenite, diorite, dolerite, etc., while the latter is of siliceous materials. Pecked and ground tools are of fine-grained stones and comprise edge tools, viz. axes, adzes, chisels, wedges and chopping tools, and non-edge tools like hammer-stones, rubber-stones, pounders, fabricators, querns, etc., of coarse-grained materials. Edge tools helped the rapid clearance of forests and the working of wood. Discarded axes might have served as hoes. Hammer-stones, rubber-stones, querns and the like formed the equipment for pounding or grinding corn and similar purposes. Edge tools are found in various conditions: flaked and edge-ground; with the edge only ground; wholly pecked; or wholly ground. They were also reused, though rarely. The mace-head—a discoidal stone with a central perforation—was used as a weight for the digging stick.
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The blade industry consists of tools made of close fine-grained siliceous stones like chert, agate, jasper, chalcedony and in lesser frequency opal and quartz. Blades including backed and serrated varieties predominate. Some do show secondary working and marks of use. From the blade blanks other tools like lunates, points, crescents, trapezes, etc., were produced and were used singly or as a composite tool, e.g. sickle, after hafting. These tools are so simple yet versatile that they could be used either singly or in combination as arrow-heads, barbs, borers, sickles, etc., for multiple purposes. Animal bones, especially distal ends and long bones, were shaped into points, chisels, axe-heads, scrapers, etc., as are found at PIKLIHAL, HALAKUNDI, TEKKALAKOTTA, PALAVOY, etc., and used on soft materials. Edge-ground potsherds were used as scrapers. Besides a bronze finger ring from BRAHMAGIRI, a chisel from PIKLIHAL, two miniature axes—one double-edged and the other flat—and a fish hook from HALLUR and two flat rectangular axes from TEKKALAKOTTA and BRAHMAGIRI—all of copper and from the upper phase and of Chalcolithic influence form the metal tool repertoire.
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Beads, the major ornament are of shell, steatite, terracotta and siliceous stones. Metal ornaments are represented by gold spiral ear ornaments from TEKKALAKOTTA, a bead from T. NARSIPUR and a copper spiral ring from TEKKALAKOTTA, a bead from T. NARSIPUR and bangles and pins from BRAHMAGIRI. The metal objects are from the upper phase, but stone and terracotta ones continue in the phase from the earlier. The introduction of metal again reflects a Chalcolithic impact.
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The pottery of the Neolithic folk is entirely handmade in the technique of the anvil and ḍabber [16.11] or of turning on a turntable. The surface treatment consists of burnishing, slip and dressing and roughening or rusticating. The inner surface of the pot when leather-hard is usually scraped with grass or any other abrasive material. Some vessels bear post-firing painting in red ochre in the lower phase and pre-firing designs in black or violet pigment, as at HALLUR, SANGANAKALLU and TEKKALAKOTTA, in the upper. In the lower Neolithic simple-smearing paintings are confined to the rim and spout. In the upper phase linear designs are adopted. Applied bands and linear incised patterns are also used. The pottery in general is grey and red in all variations, besides brown and buff. In addition a wheel-made black-on-red ware simulating the Jorwe Ware [11.11] is also found. SANGANAKALLU has a brown and black ware and a wheel-thrown white-painted black-and-red [11.1.5] ware is found at HALLUR and TEKKALAKOTTA; these are surely of Chalcolithic affinity. Pot forms are essentially utilitarian, but footed bowls, lipped and spouted pots resembling the tea-kettle from TEKKALAKOTTA and bell-shaped as also perforated vessels, etc., must have had special restricted functions. Certain pot forms also are due to the Chalcolithic influence. Mat impressions on pottery and woven split bamboo screens show the knowledge of weaving.
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Besides paintings and bruisings on the rock-face [13] found at PIKLIHAL, BENKAL, BELLARY, etc., terracotta figurines of bulls and birds are the only examples of Neolithic art. They are hand-modelled with all limbs luted; the legs of the bulls are not usually separated. Such figures come from PIKLIHAL, TEKKALAKOTTA and SANGANAKALLU and are available in the lower levels and onwards. Another important object found in the upper phase is the head-rest [12.5] as at T. NARSIPUR and HALLUR.
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Both fragmentary and extended inhumations in pits and urns [12.4] were practised. Fragmentary burials are more popular in the case of children, often under the floor. The burials are near the habitation or even under the floor. Attendant furnishing is common in the upper phase. Adults are interred in an extended fashion with pots, stone tools and even a head-rest as at T. NARSIPUR, while children are interred in urns.
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On the origin of the Neolithic culture there are two theories. The first is the dispersal from w. Asia postulated on the strength of the ceramic tradition of Shah Tepe and other w. Asian sites, whence migration of a group of people from the Turkmen steppe and Elburz mountains gathered en route the *Bos indicus* from the Indus people and other Chalcolithic traits (Allchin, 1968). The second is an autochthonous origin with Bellary as the nuclear region for its dispersal (Krishnaswami, 1960). At present the origin is a moot question. Yet it is true that in the Neolithic of Karnataka, particularly in its upper phase, a close contact was maintained with the Chalcolithic culture of its neighbours in the n. Deccan [4.14.6] with mutual borrowings explicit in certain traits of ceramics, burial customs, residential patterns, technology, etc.
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Ash mounds [14.3] are an integral part of the Neolithic of Karnataka and range in time from the Neolithic to the Iron Age. Their origin and purpose are still enigmatic. One view is that they are cattle pens periodically burnt down and levelled to give place to new ones. The other is that they are mere dumps of accumulated cattle dung and refuse of the Neolithic folk which were periodically burnt.
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In time span the Neolithic of Karnataka ranges roughly from 2400 to 1000 B.C., the lower Neolithic ending some time about 1800 B.C. and marking the commencement of the upper phase. [The following ¹⁴C dates are available: KODEKAL, 2460±105 B.C.; TERDAL, 1770 to 1935±100 B.C.; TEKKALAKOTTA, 1540 to 1780±105 B.C.; SANGANAKALLU, 1550 to 1585±105 B.C. 1590±110 B.C.; PALAVOY, 1540±100, 1965±105 B.C.; HALLUR, 1195±100, 1425±110, 1710±105, 955±100, 1105±105 B.C., the last two of the Neolithic-Megalithic overlap; T. NARSIPUR, 1495 to 1085±100 B.C.
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Allchin, B. & R., 1968, *Birth of Indian Civilization*, Harmondsworth, pp. 161-70. Krishnaswami, V.D., 1960, in *AI*, 16, p. 50. For sites see respective entries in vol II.—K.S. RAMACHANDRAN
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*4.6.10 S. and s.-w. region.* Despite their contiguity the two s. states Kerala and Tamil Nadu are of two differing geographical, climatic and ecological types. The former is dominated by the vertebral and towering w. Ghats, resulting in a truly sub-equatorial belt with lush vegetation, heavy s.-w. monsoon and essentially maritime and water-borne functional bias. On the other hand the comparatively loosely knit chain of the E. Ghats, swinging from the e. coast into and across the peninsula, on the n. borders of Tamil Nadu and joining W. Ghats around the Nilgiris, gives it a different character. The advent of cultural impulses into Tamil Nadu in the post-Palaeolithic ages was largely shaped by this physical difference, and this generally followed the Ghats in the region between the Nilgiris and the Cardamon Hills, comprising the best part of e. Coimbatore, Salem, N. Arcot and the w. part of Dts Madurai, which form the most hilly tracts of the state. It is precisely in this region that the Neolithic cultures of the state have also mostly been identified.
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The regions comprised by both the states were sporadically investigated in the past for Neolithic vestiges, both by geologist-prehistorians as Foote, 1916, and by others. Relatively recently systematic explorations and excavations have been undertaken, mainly by the ASI. While a fairly large number of sites in Coimbatore, Salem, N. Arcot and Madurai and a stray site as far s. as Seidunganallur, Dt Tirunelveli, had formerly yielded Neolithic tools, their cultural and stratigraphic context has been studied mainly by the recent excavation at PAIYAMPALLI in Dt N. Arcot, which has a specially adventitious location linking it with the sites of similar cultural context to their n. and n.-w., in the Karnataka region.
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The physiographic context of the occurrence of the Neolithic sites is the continuance of the Dhāṟwāṟ formation in Dt N. Arcot and the availability of variant raw materials like the hypersthene granite, diorite and diabase, besides dolorite, the best supply of which are found in the dykes in the Bara Mahal and in Attur and in the Bargur factory site in Krishnagiri taluka, to the e. of Varatarapalli in Dt Salem. As many as 70 Neolithic tools had been collected by Foote in this region and are now in the Madras Government Museum.
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The site at T. KALLUPATTI, about 12 km s.-w. of Tirumangalam in Dt Madurai, has also yielded in recent years a Neolithic habitation with ashy layers characterizing the deposit, now under fast depredation by the local people for manure. The tools here are made of basalt and are of large-to-small size, in good finish. A characteristic of the celts of Salem is that they are better ground and polished than even the Deccan neoliths [4.6.7-9], especially considering their fabrication on the coarse and hard rock-types.
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There are also trap dykes in Perambalur taluka of Dt Tiruchchirappalli, also associated with traces of copper ore, as at Olapatti and Veppur. In Dt S. Arcot trap dykes have been noticed at Toludur on the n. bank of the Vellar and another near Mailam, n.-w. of Pondicherry. Neolithic tools, associated with megaliths [4.17.9] with urn-burials and the Rouletted Ware [11.21], have also been picked up from SANGAMĒḌU, Dt S. Arcot. The excavated site of PAIYAMPALLI in Tirupattur taluka of Dt N. Arcot has a trap dyke running close to it. Here the Neolithic horizon, Pd I, is divisible into two phases, A and B, of which Phase A contained pottery of pale grey and burnished grey wares, besides red ware in small quantities. Phase B produced red ware as the principal ceramic, although grey ware continued. Painted pottery was absent. The pottery was either handmade or turned on slow wheel. Of the rare but significant shapes one was the bowl with a short-lipped spout. Microlithic blades increased in number in Phase B. There were no bone tools.
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The three terraces on the slope of the local hill revealed, besides the two phases of Pd I, dwelling pits [14.13], also noticed at NAGARJUNAKONDA and BURZAHOM. These pits were of varying depths, cut into the natural soil, roughly oval or rectangular and oriented to the cardinal points. They either were divided into two parts by a row of stones, or had a ramped approach in the larger pits, in some cases with two stages of filling, respectively by stone slab flooring and rammed earth flooring 50 cm thick. A coarse red ware jar was found in one of them. Post-holes along the periphery suggested thatched roofs. In Phase B there seems to have been a definite predilection for built-up huts on wooden posts above the dwelling pits. Floors were often of stone chips and plastered with earth. The next three upper layers, constituting Pd II, though continuing the grey ware and the polished stone axes of the preceding Pd (Neolithic), registered an overlap with the Iron Age, yielding iron objects and the Megalithic Black-and-red Ware [11.15.3]. For Pd I the earliest available ¹⁴C data is 1725±110 B.C.; the start of the period could thus be still earlier. For Pd II the oldest and youngest dates are 640±105 B.C. and 210±100 B.C.
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Food habits of the people are perhaps indicated by the charred grains identified as horsegram (*kulti*) and green gram, but these are found in what appears to be the 'overlap' levels. The domesticated animals, as known from their skeletal remains, have a wide range such as the bovid group, sheep, spotted deer, fowl, pig and jungle cat. Bones of the rhinoceros which were also found in the levels might indicate that either they were used as anvils for chipping microliths, as suggested by Zeuner for LANGHNAJ (Gujarat), or could be for their anciently reputed medicinal and talismanic value and possibly were imported, seemingly with no bearing on the Neolithic climate (excavator's inference).
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The Salem Neolithic collections of Foote show a great variety of tool types, on the whole comparing favourably with those already known elsewhere from the Deccan sites, as at SANGANAKALLU and NAGARJUNAKONDA. Mace-heads, axe hammers (with circular section across the central part), shoe-last celts (fairly common), picks or fabricators (almost identical with those from NAGARJUNAKONDA, chisels, burnished stones, pestles or corn-crushers, triangular-shaped flat celts, adzes (very rare), long celts with more or less oblong lower body, very small celts often on flakes, with the entire body and edges polished, are all present. Flake-made tools are preponderant. The polishing of the tools was dependent on the nature of the rock chosen; the coarse ones are only pecked and ground. Re-using of the edges appears to be common. Of the mace-heads there is a particularly large specimen, perhaps the largest yet known in India, the central hole of which must have been 8 cm. in diameter; it was apparently a weapon of defence as well as a functional tool. No associated pottery is reported.
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Kerala had so far shown no traces of any typical Neolithic culture, either stratigraphically preceding the profusely occurring Megalithic tombs [4.17.10] or in association with typical Neolithic pottery or of microliths which are sometimes found in the Ponnani valley. But sporadic occurrence of pointed-butted polished celts, similar to those of BRAHMAGIRI or the sites in Salem or N. Arcot, has been reported either from Megalithic underground rock-cut tombs in the lateritic areas or out of context in the Periyar river beds.
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Foote, R.B., 1916, *Indian Prehistoric & Protohistoric Antiquities*, Madras. *Gazetteers of Salem, Madurai & Tiruchchirappalli Dts.*—K.V. SOUNDARA RAJAN