Palavoy is a complex site-cum-ashmound situated between the Hagari and Pennar rivers in modern day Andhra Pradesh. The site is relatively well preserved apart from some destruction produced by a new long trench dug in 2003 at the base of the hill. This trench, unfortunately, has cut through some of the cultural areas, exposing in places pits, hearths and a grave.
The sites has three ashmounds of which the central one, closer to the habitation area is also the most extended. The habitation area is composed of circular stone structures on terraced slopes of the hill lying east of the site. In Palavoy there are also two possible rock shelters and several dolmens (probably from the Iron Age), both near the site and in the surrounding landscape.
The site was excavated by Rami Reddy (1976), who mainly focused on the central ashmound. The trenches from this excavation are still present. Our work in Palavoy consisted in a detailed survey of the area as well as a careful sampling of the central ashmound stratigraphic sequence, both for micromorphology and phytolith analyses. We have also rescued the material uncovered by the excavation of the modern trench as well as documented the anthropic deposits by a detailed drawing of the trench western side. The drawing documents more than 50 m in lenght of site deposits. More survey and GIS work is planned for the 2005 field-season.
The image in Figure 2 illustrates the rythmic alternation of ashy layers and vitrified layers in the central ashmound at Palavoy. The upper part of the sequence shows layers of ca. 15-20 cm with the lower portion of semi-vitrified material that gradually becomes, in the upper portion, of ashy consistency (upper enlargement). The lower part of the sequence shows a very thick, completely vetrified layer (lower enlargement).
These sediments, common in all the ashmounds, seems to point to different types of fire and/or fire management. The ashy layers probably the remnants of slow dung burning at low temperatures while the vitrified layers the result of high temperatures fires (> 1100 degrees C).
Figure 3 shows how complex can be the ashmound stratigraphy. In quite a few of the ashmounds visited in 2003, we have observed a basal layer of finely laminated deposit that seems to be decomposed organic matter (probably dung). These layers do not seem to have come into contact with fire. Often there are also thin layers or pockets of soil, which might have been related to periods of break in the heaping of dung and firing. These characteristics were also described by other archaeologists that worked with the ashmounds (e.g. Allchin 1963; Korisettar et al 2001; Paddaya 1991; Rami Reddy 1976).