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Dating the Neolithic of South India: new radiometric evidence for key economic, social and ritual transformations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Dorian Q Fuller ,
Nicole Boivin  and
Ravi Korisettar
Dorian Q Fuller
Affiliation:
Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 31-34 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PY, UK (Email: [email protected])
Nicole Boivin
Affiliation:
Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies, University of Cambridge, UK
Ravi Korisettar
Affiliation:
Department of Ancient History & Archaeology, Karnatak University, India
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Extract

The Neolithic period in South India is known for its ashmounds, superseded (in its Iron Age) by megalith builders with craft specialisation. Thanks to a major radiocarbon dating programme and Bayesian analysis of the dates, the authors have placed this sequence in a new chronological framework: the ashmounds, formed by burning cattle dung, are created by a few generations of people. In many cases the mounds are then succeeded by villages, for which they may have acted as founding rituals. The new tightly dated sequence also chronicles the cultivation of particular crops, some indigenous and some introduced from Africa.

Keywords

NeolithicSouth AsiaSouth Indiaashmoundsmegaliths
Type
Method
Information
Antiquity , Volume 81 , Issue 313 , 1 September 2007 , pp. 755 - 778
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2007

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