The Herders’ Monuments: Ashmounds of Southern Deccan Neolithic
The Herders’ Monuments: Ashmounds of Southern Deccan Neolithic is an archaeological project concerned with the study of the ashmounds formed by the characteristic accumulation of burned dung in the pastoral settlements of the Neolithic of Southern Deccan (India) (Fig. 1 and 2). The ashmounds (Fig. 2) have been recognised as a great archaeological interest already in the 18th century. Since then, a number of archaeologists have tackled the issue of their formation and the nature of the human habitation associated with them. The formation of these sites is clearly related to the accumulation of ash from dung burning, although their detailed life-cycle remains unclear. The available field evidence supports the idea that the ashmounds represent some form of seasonal encampment by a pastoral segment of the society or the result of seasonal transhumance of cattle herders. Furthermore, the type of human occupation at the ashmounds is still ambiguous. There are clearly a number of different types of ashmound sites: some consists only of the heaped deposits of dung and stand alone in the open, others are at the base of hills with villages on the top of them and some ashmounds are set next to permanent occupations.
The Herder’s Monuments project covers two geographical areas of the Deccan Plateau: the Anantapur District of Andhra Pradesh and the Raichur and Gulburga Districts of Karnataka (Figure 2). In these areas there are numerous Neolithic sites, a number of which have been surveyed during the 2004 field season (Palavoy -Fig.3- Wondalli, Watgal, Tadbidi, Benakanhalli, etc).
Aims of the project
The project aims to address the following issues:
• Little or nothing is known about the formation of the ashmounds. The ashy sediments undoubtedly show a cyclic deposition but it is unclear if these represent short annual cycles or a series of longer cycles with regular burnings and periods of abandonment. A combination of geoarchaeological and phytolith analyses it is used to address this question.
• A move to regional scale is needed to recognize the context of the ashmounds in respect to the Neolithic settlement pattern of the Southern Deccan. This is also essential to understanding the ashmounds’ practical use and possible ritualistic and/or symbolic meaning.
• The extent and nature of the human occupation of the Neolithic sites associated with ashmounds is not fully understood. There are obviously many different combinations of ashmounds - settlements to investigate further. Most previous excavations have concentrated on the area of the ash accumulation, which is normally poor in occupation deposits and which may therefore lead to a false conclusion that the site was only intermittently occupied.
• Finally, this project will provide a significant opportunity to record critical information about the ashmounds. This is especially important because today many ashmounds are threatened with destruction. Some of these sites have been already destroyed and others are under serious threat. Agricultural expansion, deep ploughing and extensive irrigation, together with the recycling of the old ash as fertiliser or architectonical material for modern villages, seriously endanger the preservation of this rich archaeological heritage of the Indian peninsula.
The following ashmounds are some of the ones surveyed by our team: