Megaliths

Also called: Megalithic burials · Topic: Prehistory: Human Origins and Stone Age Cultures · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 1 "Bricks, Beads and Bones"; Class 12, Ch 2 "Kings, Farmers and Towns"

Meaning

Megaliths (from Greek mega = big, lithos = stone) are structures built with large stones, mostly to bury the dead or mark a burial. In the Indian subcontinent they are found mainly in the Deccan, central India and south India, and NCERT dates them to the early Iron Age, from c. 1000 BCE.

They matter because they are our main evidence for how people lived in the peninsula before written records. They show the early use of iron there, and they show that some people were richer than others. They come just before the chiefdoms and kingdoms of the early historic south.

Explanation

Background: from Neolithic graves to stone burials

• Burying the dead with objects was a very old practice. At Mehrgarh (c. 7000 BCE) people buried their dead in graves, with grave goods (objects placed with the body) that tell us about belief and about who owned what.
• In the Harappan cities (NCERT Ch 1, "Bricks, Beads and Bones") the dead were usually laid in simple pits with pots and ornaments.
• By c. 1000 BCE the south and the Deccan had a long Neolithic–Chalcolithic past:
• agro-pastoral villages (farming and herding together) existed across most of the subcontinent by 2500 BCE;

• Chalcolithic (copper-stone) sites such as Inamgaon lasted until c. 700 BC. [3]

• New burial customs then appeared, together with iron. Families began to mark graves with huge stones, so a burial became a visible monument.

Main types of megaliths

• Cist: a box made of stone slabs, set in the ground, with the body or bones inside.
• Dolmen: a burial "table", with large upright stones holding up a flat capstone.
• Cairn circle: a heap of rubble over the grave, ringed by a circle of boulders.
• Menhir: a single tall standing stone, often a memorial and not always a grave.
• Urn burial: bones placed in a large clay pot (urn) and buried. These are often grouped with megaliths even when no big stone is used.
• Rock-cut chambers (in Kerala): burial rooms cut into soft rock.
• Many burials were secondary burials. The body was first left out or buried for a while, and later the bones were collected and placed in the megalith.

What was put inside

• Iron objects. The dead were often buried with a rich range of iron tools and weapons:
• farming and craft tools such as hoes, sickles and axes;

• weapons such as swords, daggers and arrowheads.

• Pottery. A typical find is black-and-red ware (pots fired so that they are black inside and on the rim, and red outside).

• Ornaments and beads, sometimes of semi-precious stones such as carnelian.
• Horse equipment has been found at some sites.

What they tell us (results)

• Iron spread into the south. Iron farming tools helped people clear land and farm more of it.
• Inequality. Burials were not all alike:
• some graves hold many iron objects, and a few even hold gold;
• others hold only a few pots.

• So society was dividing into richer and poorer groups.

• Kin groups and chiefs. Large stone monuments needed many people to build them. This points to organised family or clan groups, and possibly chiefs.

• Link to the historic south. Many historians see the megalith-builders as the background to the early chiefdoms of Tamilakam (the ancient Tamil region) described in Sangam poems.

Time, place and evidence

• Period: early Iron Age. NCERT (Class 12, Ch 2, "Kings, Farmers and Towns") dates early iron and megalithic burials to c. 1000 BCE onwards. In many areas the custom went on until around the early centuries CE. Dates differ from site to site and are approximate.
• Region: mainly the Deccan, central India and south India (Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Kerala). Stone monuments are also found in other regions, such as Kashmir and the north-east.
• Named sites (textbook level):
• Brahmagiri (Karnataka): megalithic burials found in layers above Neolithic ones, which shows the order of the two cultures.
• Maski and Hallur (Karnataka).
• Junapani and Mahurjhari (Vidarbha, Maharashtra): stone-circle burials.

• Adichanallur (Tamil Nadu): a large urn-burial site.

• How we know: almost entirely from archaeology: the stone structures, bones, iron tools, black-and-red pottery and beads found in them. These people left no writing of their own. Later Tamil texts help historians understand the society that came after them.

Don't confuse with

• Southern Neolithic ash mounds: ash mounds are heaps of burnt cow dung from cattle pens, made by semi-nomadic zebu herders (herders who moved with their cattle) at sites like Kodekal and Utnur, c. 2900 BCE. [2] They are Neolithic and come before iron. Megaliths are burial monuments of the Iron Age (from c. 1000 BCE).
• Mehrgarh graves: Mehrgarh (c. 7000 BCE) had simple Neolithic graves with grave goods. Megaliths are much later and are marked by large stones and iron objects.
• Harappan burials: Harappan graves were simple pits in a Bronze Age urban civilisation in the north-west. Megaliths belong to the Iron Age peninsula and have no cities linked to them at first.
• Menhir vs dolmen: a menhir is one standing stone, often a memorial. A dolmen is a "table" of upright stones under a flat capstone.

Prelims Hooks

• "Megalith" = big stone (Greek mega + lithos). It is mainly a burial monument.
• NCERT dates early iron and megalithic burials to c. 1000 BCE, mainly in the Deccan and south India.
• The pottery usually found in megaliths is black-and-red ware. The metal most linked to them is iron, not copper.
• Site–state pairs: Brahmagiri: Karnataka; Adichanallur: Tamil Nadu (urn burials); Junapani: Maharashtra (Vidarbha).
• Order of cultures: southern Neolithic ash mounds (Kodekal/Utnur, c. 2900 BCE) [2], then Sanganakallu hilltop Neolithic (c. 2000 BCE), then megalithic Iron Age (c. 1000 BCE onwards).
• Trap: megaliths are not Neolithic, even though they are "stone" monuments. "Stone" describes the structure, not the tools. Their grave goods are mostly iron.

Mains Points

• Megaliths are the main source for the pre-literate south. With no writing, the stones, bones, iron tools and pottery are what let historians rebuild Iron Age life in the peninsula: farming, warfare, crafts and belief in life after death.
• Burials show social inequality taking shape.
• Some graves are rich in iron and gold, while others hold only a few pots.
• Building huge stone tombs needed organised labour from many people.

• Together these suggest the growth of chiefs and ranked kin groups, the base for the Tamilakam chiefdoms of the early historic period.

• Continuity and change in the south. The peninsula moved from cattle-herding Neolithic groups [2] to Chalcolithic villages [3] to iron-using megalith-builders. Each stage overlapped with the next and the change was gradual. It shows that the Stone–Copper–Iron age scheme is a teaching tool, not a fixed timetable that every region followed.

Related concepts

• Mehrgarh
• Burzahom
• Gufkral
• Chirand
• Koldihwa
• Mahagara
• Lahuradewa
• Daojali Hading
• Sarutaru
• Brahmagiri

Read more

• Neolithic and Chalcolithic in the subcontinent