Journey
Iron Age & early historic south
The south's Iron Age has no cities to show and a great deal of stone: urn cemeteries, dolmen fields, menhir alignments and craft towns. Three of these excavations have pushed the date of Tamil literacy and urbanism earlier than the textbooks allow, and none of those arguments is anywhere near settled yet.
Stops (12)
- Brahmagiri · excavated 1947
Wheeler's excavation at Brahmagiri built the stratigraphic sequence that links neolithic, megalithic and early historic south India, and everything said about the southern Iron Age is still measured against it. It is also an Ashokan site, so the sequence is tied to an absolute date at its upper end. Everything said about the southern Iron Age is still measured against this one trench.
- Adichanallur · c. 1000–200 BCE
A vast urn cemetery in the Tamraparni valley with iron, bronze, gold diadems and inscribed pottery, excavated from 1876 and again in 2004. Its grave goods sit in the Egmore museum in Chennai, and the inscribed sherds are part of the argument about how early Tamil-Brahmi begins. Its grave goods sit in the Egmore museum in Chennai, dug out in two campaigns a century apart.
- Keeladi · 6th century BCE onward
Keeladi on the Vaigai, an urban settlement with brick structures, industrial waste, graffiti-marked sherds and radiocarbon dates that have pushed Tamil urbanism several centuries earlier. It is the most argued-over excavation in India, and the repository records the finds and the fact that the dating is contested. The repository records the finds and the fact that the dating is contested, rather than choosing a side.
- Kodumanal · 3rd century BCE onward
Kodumanal, a craft town making beryl and carnelian beads, shell bangles and crucible steel, with graffiti-marked pottery and a megalithic cemetery beside the workshops. The steel and the beryl both went west, so an interior Tamil village is part of the Roman trade record. The steel and the beryl both went west, so an interior Tamil village is part of the Roman trade record.
- Korkai · the pearl coast
Korkai, the Pandya port on the Tamraparni that worked the Gulf of Mannar pearl banks, with Roman coin and rouletted ware in its levels. The Sangam poems and the Greek sailing manuals name the same fishery, which is one of the few places where the two bodies of evidence can be checked against each other.
- Kaveripattinam (Puhar) · to the 4th century CE
Kaveripattinam, the Sangam-age Chola port that the Silappadikaram describes street by street and the sea has largely taken. It is worked now as coastal marine archaeology, which means the literary description and the physical remains cannot easily be compared. It is worked now as coastal marine archaeology rather than by trench, which means the Silappadikaram's street-by-street description and the physical remains cannot easily be checked against each other. The Chola fleets of 1025 sailed from this coast.
- Hire Benakal · c. 1000 BCE onward
Hire Benakal in Koppal district, a plateau covered with several hundred dolmens and stone circles — one of the largest megalithic necropolises in India, and on the UNESCO tentative list. Many of the dolmens have porthole slabs, and the site has never been systematically excavated. Many of the dolmens have porthole slabs, and the site has never been systematically excavated.
- Mudumal Menhirs · c. 1000 BCE
The Mudumal menhirs in Telangana, some eighty large standing stones with an alignment that has been read as marking solstice sunrise, and cup marks on some of them read as a star map. The astronomical claims are unproven; the alignment is real and was measured before it was interpreted. The alignment is real and was measured before it was interpreted, which is worth saying.
- Maski · 3rd century BCE
Maski in Raichur district, a neolithic and megalithic site where an Ashokan minor rock edict was found in 1915 — the first to name the emperor as Ashoka rather than only as Devanampiya, which is how the edicts and the Ashoka of the chronicles were finally connected. That is how the edicts and the Ashoka of the Buddhist chronicles were finally connected.
- Sannati, Kalburgi · 2nd century BCE – 3rd century CE
Sannati and the Kanaganahalli stupa in Kalaburagi district, where a Satavahana-period stupa drum carried sculpted panels including a labelled portrait of Ashoka with his queens — the only inscribed image of him known. A fragmentary Ashokan edict was also found reused as a temple floor slab here. A fragmentary Ashokan edict was also found here, reused as a temple floor slab.
- Sittanavāsal · 2nd–9th century
Sittanavasal, a Tamil Jain cave with Pandya-period murals and Brahmi inscriptions, and a hill with rock-cut beds for ascetics. Tamil Jainism long predates the Shaiva and Vaishnava temple landscape that replaced it, and these caves and their inscriptions are most of the evidence for it. Tamil Jainism long predates the temple landscape that replaced it, and these inscriptions are most of the evidence.
- Attirampakkam · c. 1.5 million years ago onward
Attirampakkam on the Kortallayar, with Acheulian handaxes dated to around 1.5 million years ago and a Middle Palaeolithic industry appearing about 385,000 years ago — far earlier than the standard model allowed. The dating is debated and no hominin fossils have been found, so the species responsible is unknown. It is the deepest point in this repository's chronology by a factor of a thousand.