Haricharan_2013_Situating Megalithic Burials in the Iron

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Situating megalithic burials in the IronAge-Early Historic landscape of

southern IndiaSmriti Haricharan1, Hema Achyuthan2 & N. Suresh3

0 km 1000N

New Delhi

Siruthavoor

The megalithic burials of southern Indiaa wonderfully varied set of monumentshave long needed a chronology and a context.Broadly contemporary with the Roman andSasanian empires, these dolmens, cairns and

cists have continually raised contradictionswith their material contents. The authorsattack the problem using luminescence appliedto pottery at the site of Siruthavoor in north-east Tamilnadu. Although sharing materialculture, this first pilot project gave datesranging from 300 BC to AD 600, so exposingthe problem and perhaps, in OSL, its long-term solution.

Keywords: southern India, Tamilnadu, Siruthavoor, Iron Age-Early Historic, first millenniumBC, first millennium AD, dolmens, stone circles, cairns, cists, urn burial, OSL

Introduction

A thousand megalithic cists might be excavated with the utmost care [in south India]without any significant addition to our knowledge of their chronology (Wheeler1947:

185). The chronology of the Iron Age-Early Historic megalithic burials continues to bea problem, 65 years after Wheelers statement. The burials are spread over a large area,including the Vindhya range, Deccan plateau and peninsular India, with some outliers in

Jammu and Kashmir and the north-eastern parts of India (Banerjee1956;Gururaja Rao1972; Leshnik 1974; Sundara1979; Brubaker2001). Their grave goods indicate contacts

1 National Institute of Advanced Studies, Indian Institute of Science campus, Bangalore 550 012, India(Author for correspondence, email: [email protected])

2 Department of Geology, Anna University, Sardar Patel Road, Guindy, Chennai 600 025, India(Email: [email protected])

3

Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, 33 General Mahadeo Singh Road, Dehra Dun 248 001, India(Email: suresh [email protected])

CAntiquity Publications Ltd.ANTIQUITY87 (2013): 488502 http://antiquity.ac.uk/ant/087/ant0870488.htm

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Smriti Haricharan, Hema Achyuthan & N. Suresh

with not only other cultures in India, but also with Rome, Mesopotamia and Sri Lanka(Tomber 2007; Rajan 2008). Understanding the burial rites and their chronology is necessaryto elucidate the socio-cultural, religious and even economic aspects of this period in southernIndia, which in turn add to our knowledge of the relationships between the various culturesat this time.

The burials have been classified in a variety of forms: cairn circle, dolmen, cist burial, urnburials, sarcophagi and combinations of these (Krishnaswami1949;Gururaja Rao1972;Leshnik 1972; Rajan 2000). Mohanty & Selvakumar (2002) observed several sites thathave more than one form of monument, with a number of variations in their external andinternal architecture. Moorti (1994) states that even broadly classified types, for examplestone circles or cairn circles, vary considerably in their shape, size and nature of deposit andare rarely similar in all aspects. The use of megalithic as an umbrella term encompassingsuch varied burial practices over a long time span is based on the fact that most of theburials are associated with some kind of stone setting. They have also been thought to share

particular grave goods: iron artefacts and Black and Red Ware (BRW) pottery. However,this assumption seems to compound the problem further, rather than being explicatory, andhere we prefer to use the term Iron Age-Early Historic burials instead of megalithic burials(except in Table 2 where the term megalithic has been retained, as excavation reports ofhabitation sites refer to a megalithic phase, making the period they refer to ambiguous).

In some parts of peninsular India, like northern Karnataka, the dates of the burials havebeen pushed back to the beginning of the first millennium BC. Thomas et al. (2008)have recently used both thermo-luminescence (TL) and optically stimulated luminescence(OSL) methods to date pottery samples from a site within the University of Hyderabad,

Andhra Pradesh, obtaining dates of 2145 BC and 2795 BC (TL) and 1995 BC and 2505 BC

(SAR-OSL) respectively. These align well with radiocarbon dates from Brahmagiri, northernKarnataka, with an overall range between 2140 and 1940 BC (Morrison2005). However,these are exceptional; few scientific dates are available, a problem aggravated by few burialshaving any surviving organic matter (Moorti1994; Brubaker2001;Morrison2005).

In Tamilnadu (Figure 1), the megalithic burials are believed to date from 800900 BCto AD 400500 (Gururaja Rao1972;Leshnik1972;Allchin 1974; Rajan2000; Mohanty& Selvakumar 2002). The later part of this Iron Age-Early Historic period famously featuresmaterial from Rome and other neighbouring lands, which has been used to help with thechronology. Wheeler (1947) based his dates for the burials on the occurrence of Roman and

Satavahana coins at a habitation site at Chandravalli. Leshnik (1974) used material fromTaxila to date material from the Iron Age-Early Historic burials of southern India. Tomber(2007)drew attention to the fact that much of the Roman pottery found in southern Indiathat had previously been consigned to the late first century BC to second or third centuries

AD can now be extended to the sixth or even early seventh centuries AD.Radiometric dates obtained from excavated burial sites in Tamilnadu, such as Paiyampalli

(North Arcot district) and Kodumanal are 640+105 BC (Possehl1994) and AD 1550+90(Joshi 1993b) respectively. These dates reiterate the broad spread of the burial practicesand the need to reassess and fine-tune their chronology. While this paper does not provideanswers to all the problems of chronology for the Iron Age-Early Historic burials in southern

India, it aims to substantiate the argument for a need to re-examine the way we approach thisCAntiquity Publications Ltd.

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Situating megalithic burials in the Iron Age-Early Historic landscape of southern India

Figure 1. Iron Age-Early Historic burial and Early Historic habitation sites.

problem. The chosen case study is the burial ground at Siruthavoor in north-east Tamilnadu,and the chosen method is OSL dating, used on ceramics.

Siruthavoor: a case study

Siruthavoor lies in Kanchipuram district, situated along the northern coast of Tamilnadu,India and is adjacent to the Bay of Bengal (Figure 1). The area in which the Iron Age-EarlyHistoric burials are located is bounded by the Siruthavoor lake (tank) towards the south and

a hillock of around 31m asl towards the north, with a smaller hillock (below 15m asl) to theeast (Figure 2). The geology of the area is represented by Archaean to Precambrian crystallineformations such as charnockite, granite gneiss and ultrabasic rocks, overlain by Mesozoicand Tertiary sedimentary rocks (Rajmohan & Elango2005). Most of the megalithic burialsat the site are built using charnockite, granite gneiss and lateritic rocks.

Exploration, mapping and excavation were conducted at the site from 20072009.Although innumerable burials have been destroyed at this site by sand quarrying, over500 burials remained during the survey. Of these, 166 were of the cairn circle type, 141

were dolmens, 157 were dolmens within a stone circle, 38 were cists and 57 were of cist-with-circle type. The urn burials were harder to map since most of them have no stone appendage

visible on the surface. Eight burials were excavated. Burial 1 was a cairn circle type; burialCAntiquity Publications Ltd.

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Figure 2. Siruthavoor in 2008 excavated in collaboration with ASI (Chennai Circle) and the Department of Geology, AnnaUniversity, Chennai.

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Figure 3. Burial 3 cist with two boulders, which are part of the cairn circle, seen from the western side.

Figure 4. Burial 4 dolmen, before excavation near the outcrop.

2 a sarcophagus; burial 3 a cist within a stone circle (Figure 3); burial 4 a dolmen withouta circle (Figure 4); burial 5 a dolmen within a circle, with pottery sarcophagi (Figure 5);burial 6 a dolmen without a circle; and burials 7 and 8 (Figure 6) were urn burials. Burials1, 4, 5 and 6 were intact, while burials 2, 3, 7 and 8 were partially disturbed or exposed.

Burials 2, 7 and 8 did not have any associated lithic appendage visible on the surface.CAntiquity Publications Ltd.

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Figure 5. Burial 5, showing all three sarcophagi within the dolmen; cairn stones are visible in the background.

The pottery from Siruthavoor was, on the whole, badly preserved, making analysis of itsform and fabric difficult (Figure 7). Most of the anthropogenic disturbance of the burials atSiruthavoor was in the area around burials 2 and 3. A large percentage of what remains ofthe burials in this area indicates that they were cist burials. The surface material collectedis similar to the material excavated in burial 3 including iron objects, carnelian beads andpottery (Figure 8). Between burials 2 and 3 and burials 4, 5 and 6, large boulders areindicative of possible dolmen type burials, but the surface finds here are very sparse. This

gives tantalising possibilities of spatio-temporal correlations. However, the need for finerchronological resolution becomes even greater when one considers an evolutionary approachto the study of the archaeological record (Lipo et al. 2005).

Surface finds such as microlithic tools, excavation of the Iron Age-Early Historic burialsat the site and a Siva temple (dated to the ninth century AD from epigraphical evidence) atSiruthavoor indicate that the site has been occupied for a long period of time and throughdifferent cultural phases. No evidence of a habitation site has been found at Siruthavoorso far. During construction work near the Siva temple, villagers reported finding metalartefacts and pottery which match the description of Black Ware. However, this has notbeen corroborated. The undiagnostic pottery and the lack of associated organic material at

Siruthavoor led to the choice of OSL as a dating method.CAntiquity Publications Ltd.

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Figure 6. Burial 8 from Siruthavoor.

Figure 7. Pottery from burials 3, 4, 5 and 7 (all scales are 5cm).


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Figure 8. Carnelian beads and iron objects from burials 2 and 3.

OSL dating

There has been a significant improvement in the OSL dating technique in recent years,particularly using the single aliquot regeneration (SAR) protocol, leading to an expectedaccuracy of around 510 per cent (Bluszcz 2004). Of the eight excavated burials atSiruthavoor, five were dated using OSL (Table 1). All the samples were obtained fromsarcophagi or urns containing burial remains, as these are one of the more permanent featurespresent in each burial. Altogether, six samples of pottery, two from burial 5 (sarcophagi 5a

and 5c), and one from each of burials 3, 4, 6 and 8 were dated.OSL dating was carried out at the luminescence dating laboratory at Wadia Institute ofHimalayan Geology, Dehra Dun, India. Samples of pottery sarcophagi or urns were crushedunder subdued red light conditions. The luminescence was stimulated by exposure to bluelight in a Riso TL-DA20 reader and measured as De (equivalent dose), the radiation trappedsince the pottery was fired. To get an assessment of time in calendar years, the De is dividedby annual dose rates deduced from the amounts of potassium, uranium and thorium in thepot fabric, measured by XRF. Soil originally in contact with the pottery was not available.

The sequence at Siruthavoor

The OSL dates suggest that the site was in use from at least 300+51 BC until AD 619+28(Table 1). The dolmen burial, burial 4 (381179 BC) was the earliest (Figure 4). It wassituated next to the smaller hillock at Siruthavoor and is north of the Siruthavoor lake. Thegrave goods included a few fragmentary pottery pieces, located at a depth of 100300mm.The sediments were reddish orange (10 R 6/8) in colour and sandy silt in texture. Burial 5

was a dolmen type of burial but with a stone circle around it (Figure 5). Three sarcophagi hadbeen placed within the dolmen, named for convenience as a, b and c. The samples from thesarcophagi dated to 103 BCAD 113 (c) and 42 BCAD 374 (a). The associated material

was limited to a gold ring, some very fragmentary pieces of pottery and a three-legged jar.

McIntosh (1985) locates the occurrence of three-legged jars in Karnataka and adjacent areasCAntiquity Publications Ltd.

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Table 1. OSL dates of the six excavated burials at Siruthavoor.

Moisture content Equivalent dose Dose rate

Lab no. Burial type U (ppm) Th (ppm) K (%) (%) (De) Gy (Gy/ka)

LD650 Dolmen withoutcircle (burial4)

2+0.02 13.2+0.13 1.30+0.01 2 6.58+0.10 2.81+0.05 3

LD651 Dolmen withcircle (burial

5c)

1.8+0.02 17.8+0.18 1.85+0.02 2 7.32+0.38 3.63+0.05

LD652 Dolmen withcircle (burial5a)

0.4+0.004 34.1+0.34 1.75+0.02 2 8.07+0.90 4.38+0.07 A

LD653 Cist withoutcircle (burial6)

0.8+0.01 29.2+0.29 1.39+0.01 2 6.27+0.14 3.77+0.06 A

LD654 Urn (burial 8) 2.1+0.02 18.1+0.18 1.20+0.01 2 4.70+0.22 3.09+0.05 ALD655 Cist with circle

(burial 3)1.4+0.01 40.3+0.4 1.28+0.01 2 6.38+0.08 4.59+0.08 A

C

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in Tamilnadu, dating them to between 500 and 300 BC. The two samples dated fromburial 5 are approximately 100 years apart, pointing towards the possible reuse of a singlegrave.

Burial 8 (AD 413561) was an urn burial at the southern end of the promontory. Themost recent date was obtained from a cist within a circle, burial 3 (AD 591647), which

also contained the widest variety and largest quantity of pottery. This burial also containedthree pot sherds with identical graffiti (Haricharan & Achyuthan2012). The sediments inthe burial were uniformly red (10 R 5/8) in colour and compact and sandy silt in texture,

with very little or no variation. The burial was partially disturbed but the cist was completelyintact with most cairn circle stonesin situ on the eastern half (Figure 3). The base of thesarcophagus within the cist was excavated at a depth of 0.66m from the surface and was usedfor dating this burial. The bulk of the associated pottery was excavated at a depth of 0.630.67m inside and around the cist. The pots were of varied shapes and, while occasionallyBlack and Red Ware (BRW) bowls and Black Ware (BW) and Red Ware (RW) stands were

noticed, the majority were RW pots with a narrow mouth and rounded base (Figure 7).The iron implements from this burial were varied in size and shape, and etched carnelianbeads were also recovered from this burial (Figure 8). It was observed that the dolmen andcist burials without circles (burials 4 and 6), are of an earlier date than those with a circle(burials 3, 5a and 5c).

Dates from neighbouring sites

Although the Early Historic period in Tamilnadu is accepted to run from 300 BCAD300, there are problems with this assigned time span (Table 2). Rajan (2008) dates graffiti

marks on pottery and carnelian beads to the Early Historic period based on evidence fromexcavated material from Kodumanal. At Tangal, located close to Chennai, a habitation site

with carnelian beads, iron objects and BRW, RW and BW pottery was relatively dated, usingcoins, to AD 800 (Cammiade1930; Leshnik 1974). The cist burial dated at Kodumanalhad similar associated evidence of pot sherds with graffiti, iron implements and carnelianbeads but is dated to the sixteenth century (Ghosh 1989; Rajan 2008). Adichannallur,Veerapatti, Madurai district, and Paiyampalli are habitation sites as well as Iron Age-EarlyHistoric burial sites. A preceding Neolithic period was excavated at Paiyampalli (Ghosh1969, 1973, 1989; Lal1971,1973), but some of the 14 C dates for Neolithic and Iron Age-

Early Historic phases from Paiyampalli were AD 935+110 and AD 1140+195 respectively,and have been discarded as doubtful (Lal 1971). Similarly, dates from Adichannallur andVeerapatti, Madurai district, have been discarded as they did not correlate with associatedmaterial evidence (Agrawalet al. 1964; Dorje & Banerji2000). While this poses a problemfor accepting the scientific dates as absolute, there is a need to evaluate the relative datingmethods as well.

At habitation sites such as Adiyamankottai, Tamilnadu, it is noticeable that excavationreports suggest three phases of occupation with changing pottery types and chronology,from a majority of BRW and BW pottery in the first phase to a shift towards RW and coarseRW in the second phase (Mitra 1983b, 1984). Shanmugam (2000) states that excavations

from various habitation, burial and port sites in Tamilnadu specify that BRW is generallyCAntiquity Publications Ltd.

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Table 2. Dates from previously excavated Iron Age-Early Historic sites in Tamilnadu.

Site Date Site assignation Pottery References

Alagankulam,Ramnad district

380+105 BC Habitation site BRW, amphorae Joshi1993a; Possehl1994; Menon2002

355+135 BC Rouletted Ware, Grey Ware

Possehl1994

255+105 BC Possehl1994205+105 BC Possehl1994

Adichannallur,Tirunelvelidistrict

AD 1150+100 Megalithic, urnburial

BRW, RW and BW Ghosh 1989; Possehl1994

Adiyamankottai,Dharmapuridistrict

AD 180+125 Habitation siteswith 3 phases

BRW, BW and brightslipped Russet-Coated Ware

Mitra 1983b; Mitra1984; Tripathi1987;Possehl1994

Apukullu, North

Arcot district

350+145 BC Megalithic

burial andhabitation site

BRW, lustrous

polished BW(Phase I)Red-slipped Wareand two of theRouletted Ware,(Phase II, PhaseIII)

Thapar 1980; Mitra

1983a; Possehl1994

Killiyur,Thanjavurdistrict

315+105 BC Early Historicport

BRW Ghosh 1973; Ghosh1989; Possehl1994

Kanchipuram,

Chengleputdistrict

AD 1070+120 Habitation site BRW, Russet-Coated

painted ware andBW

Lal1971;Deshpande

1974; Deshpande1975; Thapar1979;Tripathi1987;Possehl1994

480+125 BC Possehl1994200+95 BC Possehl1994

Kodumanal,Periyar district

AD 1550+90 Megalithic, cistwith circleburial

BRW, Russet-Coatedpainted ware andBW

Ghosh 1989; Joshi1993b; Menon2002

Korkai, Tirunelvelidistrict

810+95 BC Early Historicport and

megalithicurn burial(dated)

BRW, sherds ofblack-slipped, plain

red, andred-slipped waresand RoulettedWare

Ghosh 1989; Possehl1994

Vallam, Thanjavur 1035+105 BC Megalithic BRW Lal1971;Possehl1994975+145 BC Possehl1994480+125 BC Possehl1994AD 610+105 Possehl1994

Paiyampalli, NorthArcot district

AD 935 +110 Late Neolithic BRW Ghosh1969;Lal1971;Ghosh 1973; Ghosh1989; Possehl1994


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Table 2. Continued.

Site Date Site assignation Pottery References

AD 1140+195 Megalithic? Possehl1994AD 1155 +105 Late Neolithic Possehl1994

AD 1235+100 Megalithic? Possehl19941725+110 BC Neolithic-

Megalithictransition

Possehl1994

1490+105 BC Neolithic-Megalithictransition

Possehl1994

1360+215 BC Late Neolithic Possehl1994640+105 BC Megalithic Possehl1994215+100 BC Megalithic Possehl1994AD 790+105 Late Neolithic Possehl1994

the earliest type of pottery and is followed by RW and coarse RW, which are of a laterperiod. At Siruthavoor, excavation revealed that the quantity and variety of pottery hadmore correlation with the age of the burial than the type of pottery.

Table 2 also shows the prolonged use of BRW pottery, which was assumed to havebeen confined to the first few centuries AD and a little earlier (Shanmugam 2000). AsMorrison (2005:260) states BRW, as is well known, is a very widespread, long-lived, rathernotorious ceramic that, notwithstanding its normative association with megaliths, is also

known to co-occur with Russet-Coated Painted Ware in Early Historic contexts and evenwith Neolithic ceramics. All the sites mentioned in Table 2 have BRW pottery, but eachsite has combinations of other pottery associated with it, ranging from BW to Rouletted

Ware, and the dates differ from the eighth century BC (Korkai) to the sixth century AD(Vallam), implying that BRW was in use for nearly 1400 years (Ghosh 1969;Lal1971,1973).

Alagankulam, Adiyamankottai and Kanchipuram in Tamilnadu are Early Historichabitation sites. All of the samples dated from Alagankulam were from different layers of thesame trench (AGM-2) and assigned to different phases (Menon2002), and their dates range

from 380+105 to 205+105 BC (Possehl1994) (Table 2). The excavated materials fromphases I and II differ little in terms of pottery and associated artefacts. Phase II is characterisedby the introduction of Roman artefacts, including amphorae and coins (Menon2002), butthe amphorae have later been identified as torpedo jar sherds from Mesopotamia by Tomber(2007). The excavators have dated Phase I, using pottery, to between the fifth and firstcenturies BC, and Phase II, using the Roman coins, from the first to the fifth centuries AD(Menon2002). At Kanchipuram, charcoal found just above the natural soil was dated anddesignated as Phase I (divided into two sub-phases), having amphorae, and relatively datedby the excavators toc.300 BCAD 500 (Deshpande 1975; Thapar1979;Ghosh 1989).One of the samples from this site, dated to AD 1070+120, was excavated in association

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Korkai and Killiyur (Table 2) are both Early Historic port sites, dated to 810+95 BC and

315+105 BC respectively by 14C of wood (Possehl 1994). The samples dated at Korkai,

however, were from an Iron Age-Early Historic urn burial (KRK1); interestingly, a coinfrom the period of Rajaraja Chola I was also recovered (Lal 1971, 1973). Kaveripattinam,Karaikadu, Vasavasamudram and Arikamedu are also probable port sites (Begley1986).These sites can be roughly dated to the same time period as the earlier Iron Age-EarlyHistoric burials at Siruthavoor. These examples highlight the point that relative datingalone based on associated material could be misleading.

Discussion

The origin and distribution of Iron Age-Early Historic burials have often been debated,

generating various theories of influence from external sources (Smith1915; Childe1946;Gururaja Rao 1972; Leshnik 1974; Narasimhaiah 1980; Allchin & Allchin 1983: 330;Reddy1991:113; Misra2001; Mohanty & Selvakumar2002). How much the Iron Age-Early Historic culture influenced or was influenced by other cultures can only be realisedonce we have a clear picture of its evolution. This study shows that while all the Iron Age-Early Historic burials at Siruthavoor had BRW pottery and iron implements, the burialsextend over a long time span and are of very different dates. This suggests that the presenceor absence of BRW pottery or iron implements alone cannot be used as an indicator of ashared cultural phase.

Unless we understand how much of the typological differentiation is dependent on

chronology, it is difficult to understand the role of other parameters such as social, religiousor geological factors. The dates of the burials at Siruthavoor will help in understandinghow these Iron Age-Early Historic burials fit into the overall chronology of the burials inTamilnadu. It will also help to understand roughly the time span for the Iron Age-EarlyHistoric burials at this site.

The social role played by the monumental burials may be informed by an analogy. Astudy conducted in the Neolithic period of the north-west European loess zone showeda marked difference between the Neolithic of Central and Western Europe. The formerhas more settlement sites than burials, the latter the inverse; while settlement acted as a

means of keeping the community together in one area, the monument and its rituals did thesame job in the other (Sherratt 1990). The megalithic burials of Tamilnadu are obviouslycontextually different, but using similar logic, some sort of communal spirit is an essentialfactor for people who are producing iron, growing crops and herding animals, whether inEurope or in India.

The larger issue raised by this paper is the importance of getting a clearer definitionand more precise chronology for these burials, in order to advance similar arguments abouttheir social role. The impact of metals and agriculture may have had a similar impetus oncultures the world over, but in order to understand this better, localised phenomena need tobe studied objectively using absolute dating methodologies. Although the results presented

in this paper are site specific, they draw attention to the importance of scientific dates forCAntiquity Publications Ltd.

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the study of Iron Age-Early Historic culture, and focus on the scope for future work in thisarea.

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the Archaeological Survey of India, New Delhi, for granting permission to carry out

the excavation at Siruthavoor. We also thank Ms Sathyabhama Badreenath ASI, Chennai Circle, for logisticalsupport. The burials were excavated in collaboration with the Archaeological Survey of India, Chennai Circle,and the Department of Geology, Anna University, Chennai. Smriti Haricharan was funded by an ICHR (NewDelhi) JRF fellowship. This work was carried out under the DST SSS project SR/S4/ES-21/Cauveri/P4. Theauthors appreciate the invaluable comments given by Dr Himansu Kumar Kundu and Dr Kathleen Morrison onvarious aspects of this paper, and are thankful to Mr Vinod R.V., Mr Thomas Babu, Gwen Kelly, Mr NarayanSharma and Mr Nagabhushan for helping with maps and images. The manuscript has benefited greatly fromthe detailed and constructive comments of Prof. Carla Sinapoli and Prof. Robin Coningham. The authors thankMartin Carver for his patience and understanding.

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Received: 2 April 2012; Accepted: 22 July 2012; Revised: 5 October 2012


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