Megalithic cultures

Introduction:

Megalithic culture is the way of life of the people who built huge stone monuments as memorial stones for the dead. According to R. M. Wheeler (1956) megaliths arc “those monuments which are built on rough, large, undressed blocks of stones, usually though not invariably of rudimental character. These monuments are connected with burials, which fulfil funerary or commemorative or religious functions.”
Megalithic monuments occur on surface at the foot of the hills and hillocks, unlike other underground pre-historic and protohistoric remains. Their very size, in terms of hugeness is very striking. Experts opine that the megaliths in the earliest stages were used in the funeral proceedings, but later on those were erected as memorial stones. Megalithic graves yielded not only the skeletal remains of tire dead, a number of other items as funerary appendages. Evidence about the megalithic cultures in India came to light in the beginning of the nineteenth century. For the first time Branfill (1818) discovered the megalithic monuments in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Babington (1823) found the megalithic occurring throughout Malabar region in Kerala. Following these initial discoveries, several private individuals, archaeologists, anthropologists, and government officials and soon made concerted efforts in the past 175 years to study the megaliths in India.

Distribution:

Megaliths are located all over India except a few areas like plains of Punjab, the IndoGangetic divide, the Ganga basin, the deserts of Rajasthan and parts of Northern Gujarat. The whole area where the megalithic culture exists may be divided into five regions, namely Southern, Eastern, Northern, Western, and Central India.

  • The megaliths in South India are located in the area. South of river Godavari. This area includes Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamilnadu. (Taylor 1851; McKenzie 1873; Breeks 1873; Burgers 1874; Codringlon 1930; Subbarao 1949; Krishnamachari 1949; Thapar 1954; Allchin 1956; Wheeler 1960; Kennedy 1975).
  • The Megaliths in North India are located in the area spread over Jammu and Kashmir, Uttaranchal, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and parts of Madhya Pradesh (DeTerra and Paterson 1936; Singh 1985; Sharma 1985; Pant 1985).
  • The Megaliths in Western India are confined to Rajasthan and Gujarat and parts of Maharashtra (Cunningham 1871; Le Mesurier 1867; Carlleyle 1883; Posschi 1980)
  • The Megaliths in Central India are distributed over Vidarbha region which includes Dhule, Amaravati, Paunar and Nagpur Districts in Maharashtra (Haimendorf 1945, 1950; Deo 1970; Ansari and Dhavalikar 1971)
  • The Megaliths in Eastern India are located over a vast area which includes Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Manipur, Nagaland, Jharkhand, Bihar and Orissa (Mills 1937; Haimendorf 1945,1950;Hodson 1974; Singh 1985)

The Megaliths in the Northern, Western, Central and Southern regions belong to a past period but those in the Eastern region are living Megaliths. In this region several tribals like the Nagas, Khasis, Garos, Gadabas, Oraons, Mundas, Bondos, Goods and others build memorial stones even today .
Among all the five regions the Southern region contains the Largest number of megaliths, the Central region and the Eastern region include (lie next largest number of megaliths, and the Northern and Western region include the least number of megaliths.

Chronology:

The chronology of Megalithic cultures in India is still unsettled. In India, the Megalithic cultures overlap with the Neo-Chalcolithic culture he., between 1000 B.C and 700 B.C. The Brahmagiri Megalithic culture in Karnataka existed between 2000 B.C and 700 A.D. Recent C-14 dates have bracketed the Megalithic culture in India between 1000 B.C and 1000 A.D.

Materials:

Local geology and rock types influenced the selection of rare materials for building the Megaliths. Most of the Megaliths which occur in the peninsular India are confined to the South of Godavari characterised by large outcrops of granite and gneiss. Sometimes people utilized big pebbles, rarely sand stone, laterite, Deccan traps and so on besides iron reefs and gold bearing reefs depending upon the availability in their respective areas where the tombs occur.

Types of Megaliths:

Meadows Taylor (1851), McKenzie (1873), Breeks (1873), Burgess (1874), Branfill (1880), Codrington (1930) mid Krishna swami(1949 attempted the earliest classification of Megaliths. Allchin and Allchin (1968) and Dikshit (1968) provided a revised classification of Megaliths. Both the classification recognised 12 types of Megaliths as shown hereunder:

  • i) Menhir (men=stone; hir=long)
  • ii) Alignments (rows of Menhirs)
  • iii) Avenues
  • iv) Barrows
  • v) Cairn or Tumulus (Dolmen placed under earth mound)
  • vi) Cairn circle (Cairn in a circle)
  • vii) Cists
  • viii) Dolmens (Dol=table + men-rock)
  • ix) Dolmenoid cists (Degenerated dolmen with a passage grave)
  • x) Umbrella stones
  • xi) Hood stones
  • xii) Rock-cut caves

(i). Menhir (men-stone; hir=long): It is a single, dressed and undressed standing stone with its base driven into the ground. A menhir is also known as monolith as only one standing stone exists as a memorial rock. The characteristics of menhirs are:
a). They vary in height from small to big in height
b). They are frequently oriented North-to-South
c). They occur at or near burial spots
d). They are sepulchral and commemorative monuments
Menhirs occur in Cochin and Travancore in Kerala, Bastar in Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa and Assam, Maski and Gulbarga in Karnataka.

(ii). Alignments (rows of Menhirs): An alignment consists of a number of menhirs erected in lines in a particular order. The characters of an alignment are:
a). They are generally made of granite rock, rarely with sandstone.
b). They range in height from 3’ to 25’ in North Karnataka (Thapar 1984), Northern Andhra Pradesh (Allchin 1956), and Kerala (Wheeler 1960).
Alignments are common in North Karnataka, Northern Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Jharkhand, Orissa and Assam.

(iii). Avenues of two or more alignments!: An avenue consists of two or more alignments which lie roughly parallel to each other. Taylor (1941) described them as “diagonal lines or parallelograms.” The characteristics of the avenues are:
a). Every avenue contains two or more alignments
b). The alignments are roughly parallel to each other
c). The rows of an alignment always contains large rocks
d). Each alignment contains four rocks which are diagonally placed with open squares.
The avenues occur in Karnataka, Central India and Assam. Where plenty of granite is available.

(iv). Barrows (earthen mounds): They are earthen mounds over the surface of which occur chips of granite. The pit covered by the barrow contains urns or terracotta legged sarcophagus. There are three types of barrows namely round, oblong or oval and long barrows depending on external shape. The whole of South India exhibits these types of monuments.

( v). Cairn: It is more or less like a barrow in appearance but made up of stone. Therefore it is a heaped up mount of stone rubble. Cairn type monuments occur among the Oraons of Jharkhand.

(vi). Cairn-circle: this type consists of a circle of stones around the Cairn beneath which is placed a single urn, or multiple urns or a terracotta legged sarcophagus.
Different scholars described them in different ways. Taylor (1881) considered Cairns and barrows together as one or two circles of large stones covering a grave or graves McKenzie (1873) considered a Cairn circle as one made by arranging stones around an area, which is of he same level as the surrounding ground. Wheeler (1960), and AUchin and Allchin (1968)
described them as shallow pit-burials, deep-pit-burials (Brahmagiri, Maski and Porkalam) and pit-circle graves (South India) respectively:

(vii). Cists: Taylor (1881), McKenzie(1873) and Breeks (1873) call them “Kislavens” and Wheeler (1960) calls them “Slabbed Cists”. Cists have a set pattern. Each cist is an underground box-like structure, rectangular in plan made of two long vertical slabs and one or two short horizontal slabs driven into the ground with a floor slab and with or without a roof slab. One of the side slabs is called “Orthostat” which may possess a circular, semi-circular or trapezoidal hole known as “porthole.” Cists are of two broad types such as:

  • a). Port-hole cist: Cist containing a port-hole Such cists occur all over Deccan including Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.
  • b). Cist with entrance chamber or cist of laterite with a porthole which is approached through a slabbed antechamber of about the size of the main cist. Such cists exist in Anantapur in Andhra Pradesh and Pudukkottai of Tamil Nadu.

The functional significance of the porthole is interpreted in various ways. Its common occurrence with the cists of different regions is attributed to a common origin of the culture. Childe (1948) considers this as “a highly specialised trait” of the Megalithic culture. Wheeler (1960) based on Brahmagiri evidence opines that the hole was evidently designed for the insertion of bones and offerings.
Thus the cists on the whole are burial places because they contain human bones and burial goods. They may or may not be surrounded by stone circles.

(viii). Dolmens: “Dol” means table and “men 5 means stone hence “Dolemn” means stone table. Taylor (1881) and Breeks(1873) call these “cromlechs. Dolmen is roughly square or quadrangular in plan consisting of several upright orthosatic slabs erected on the natural ground level to support a solitary flat slab of stone or two, which cover the space or chamber below it. Such megaliths occur in Palavoy and Muttalabanda in Anantapur District of Andhra Pradesh, Brahmagiri in Bellary District of Karnataka, Chingleput District in Tamil Nadu, Chattisgarh state and Assam state. The characteristics of dolmens are:
a). There may or may not be a floor slab.
b). A porthole may or may not be present in a dolmen .
c). The dolmen may be oriented north-east-South-west, the north-Eastern orthostatic with a circular porthole at its bottom,
d). A single dolmen or a number of dolmens may or may not be surrounded be stone circle.

(ix). Dolmenoid cists or Cromlechs: Dolmenoid cist is a burial chamber made up of multiple stones for the sides and top, with a single stone circle or double stone circles around them. Mackenzie (1873) calls them “cromlechs” “crom” means concave and “lech” means flat stone. To be precise Dolmenoid cist or Cromlech is a circle of menhirs. It consists of pillars arranged in a circular fashion to form a ceremonial ring. When a dolmen cist or cromlech occupies a greater plot of land with more and more stone pillar, it is called “stone henge.” The Dolmenoid cists or cromlechs are a speciality of South India, particularly Chingleput District of Tamil Nadu and in Kerala.
V.D. Krishna swami (1949) identified three variants of Dolmenoid cists:
a). The first variant is a rectangular structure made of internally dressed laterite boulders forming a chamber inside it. Such structures occur in Chingleput District of Tamil Nadu because of the availability ofabundant laterite materials there.
b). The second variant is chamber stones as also those of the circle are granite. there may be one or many capstones resting on the upright orthostats. This is almost similar to a cist.
c). The third variant is a structure with rude stone orthostats. It is almost completely driven into the ground level. Such examples occur in Sankavaram in Cuddapah District of Andhra Pradesh, Rallavaram in Chingleput District of Tamil Nadu, and Maski in Raichur District of Karnataka.

(x). Umbrella stones (Kodakkal): An umbrella stone , consists of a circular laterite capstone in the form of a low and solid dome resting on four inwardly leaning and tapering stones. These stones at the base join to form a square with a diagonal approaching the diameter of the capstone
The characteristics of umbrella stones are:
a). They cover pit-burials
b). They resemble the umbrella. So they are called umbrella stones. They occur in the Cochin region of Kerala which includes Cannanore, Calicut, Palaghat, Malappuram and Trichur Districts.

(xi). Hood stone (Toppikka). The hood stone is a dome shaped, dressed laterite -stone similar to the cap of umbrella stone but its flat under surface directly rests on the ground.
The characteristics of hood type of megaliths are:
a). They cover pit-burials
b). They may have a single hood stone or multiple hood stones.
They occur in the Cochin region of Kerala which includes Cannamore, Calicut, Palghat, Malappuram and Trichur Districts.

(xii). Rock-cut caves: A rock-cut cave is a burial cave cut into the laterite rock. It forms an oblong or circular structure with a vaulted dome. It may have branches or a central pillar. An approach to reach the floor of the cave is made by a flight of steps cut into the rock. Occasionally the dome of the cave possesses a central opening. The small entrance of a height of about 1.5’ resembles that of the porthole cist. The distribution of such rock-cut caves is restricted to the laterite region which lies at the foot hills between the alluvial coasts and the granite hills in Kerala.

Analysis of life ways:

The megalithic people generally occupied hilly places with perennial supplies of water and raw materials. Majority of the sites succeeded the Neolithic people. The megalithic people lived in simple circular, oval or oblong houses made of wattle and daub with thatched or reed roofs and plastered floors.
The mainstay of the economy of the people was agriculture-cum-pastoralism supplemented hunting by spinning, weaving, mat-weaving, bead-making, carpentry, iron-smithy and gold mining. The tools and weapons include flat axes, adzes, sickles, arrow heads, spear heads and domestic intensils, the pottety included black-and-red ware, black ware and the red ware.
Wheel made pottery was common. Ornament objects like beads of carnelian, jasper, agate, shell and gold and copper bangles, finger rings and shell necklaces were popular, and rock paintings were common.
People practiced post-excarnates, secondary , fractional, disarticulated and multiple burials. Most of the megalithic monuments were sepulchral – People had a fairly complex social organisation in terms of agricultural carpenters, smiths, warriors , potters and so on. Racially they belonged to Australoid, proto-Australoid and Seytho-Arabian stock. It is believed that the Scytho-Arabian stocks were responsible for the introduction of megalithism in South India.


Summary:

The megalithic monuments are concentrated in Southern India especially in the states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Maharashtra, particularly the Vidarbha region, conies next to the Southern region. It is followed by Madhya Pradesh in the Central region, Rajasthan and Gujarat in the Western region and lastly the Northern region spread over Jammu and Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh and Uttaranchal. All these regions contain megalithic culture of the past while the Eastern region contains living megaliths. Megaliths in India are of twelve types. The iron implements are common to all the megalithic
graves are flat axes, sickles, tripods, tridents, spear heads, multiple lamp hangers, arrow heads and lamps. In addition to these bronze and shell objects also appeared in the megalithic burial complexes in South India. Black-and-red ware pottery is characteristic of Southern megaliths culture.

  • Firstly, the findings indicate that the megaliths are a product of Southern India.
  • Secondly, the megaliths in all the regions are not homogeneous, hence do not belong to a particular age.
  • Thirdly, the rituals or the processes of megalithic burials are not completely known even though ritual particular about the living megaliths are available.
  • Fourthly, the builders of megalithic cultures are not definitely known even though the skeleton and circumstantial evidences point to the Dravidians as the builders of the megaliths.
  • Fifthly, although the megaliths occur in profuse and bear close resemblance with those of Europe and Western Asia, the cultural link is still far to be established.
  • Sixthly, the chronology of Indian megalithic culture has not been ascertained accurately. The black and red wares of megalithic tombs are formed overlapped at the lower end with Neolithic-Chalcolithic.
  • Finally, a comparison and contrast between the past and the living megalithic culture clearly demonstrates that both are far removed from each other. The structures built by the contemporary tribal folk are generally linked with commemorative purpose, whereas those of the past are mostly graves or intimates related to graves. The porthole opening, a characteristics feature of many of the megalithic cists, does not occur in any of the megalithic graves made by the contemporary tribes. The tribes might have given up or forgotten the custom of making porthole in course of time. This speaks of the dynamics of the custom across generations.
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