[Music] welcome to EPG partala under the subject of Indian culture we have the paper prehistoric and protohistoric cultures of India and under this paper we have a module the megalithic culture meaning and chronology and origins in this module we will be looking into the meaning of the term megalith and also its origin and chronology across the world this module was written by Shri kumara man megalithic culture when we talk about megaliths and megalithic culture we need to we carefully look into the meaning of the terms Megalis are actually large Stone monuments erected for various purposes and various activities across the worlds interestingly Scholars found lot of similarity Among The Monuments across the world they were puzzled as a result of that they put forward many theories and hypothesis actually we cannot just talk about megalithic culture one megalithic culture because megals were used as part of various cultures in various time periods across the world therefore megalithic culture cannot be just one it can be part of a regional culture again it's function is not just funerary that means to bury the dead the megal are still used by people for various activities therefore Megalis had multiple functions in the society there are even today certain groups of people who still build Megalis for various activities so we'll be looking into these aspects of Megalis the objective of this particular module used to understand the meaning of the term megalith in addition we will also seek to understand the phenomenon of Megalis in general not we also seek to understand the distribution and chronology of megalit worldwide we will also discuss the origins and possible spread of this megalithic traits across the world these are the important objectives of this particular module Megalis can be very impressive structures magalit are very large in appearance and they were built by the collective force of people they can be prominent on a particular landscape they are the earliest monuments built by the people for some specific purpose they are found in many continents of the world mainly they are found in Europe and Asia and interesting aspect of these monuments are that they are very similar some of the monuments found in Europe are exactly similar to what is found in India or what is found in Japan or other countries that is why people were puzzled to know how people who were separated by such long distances can produce same kind of Monument which are very similar in design and structure however we have to look into one factor here we are all humans we all have the same kind of cognition or same type of brain so it is no surprise that we can come up with same shapes even though we are separated by distance the for example the designs of circle or Square can appear in any parts of the world independently therefore it is not necessary that the idea of megali ism started in one place and spread to another part of the world this was the view held by many of the researchers earlier now this view is challenged although these monuments are similar across the world they do not belong to the same time context and also same cultural context they were used for different purposes that is what we can understand from these monuments the term Megalis actually refers to large stone structures however sometime these monuments can be very small in nature therefore the term megalith may also be applied to smaller Stone structure we have to liid to the fact that the idea of Megalis is taken into consideration when we refer a group of Monument as Megalis we are using it as a blanket term as a cultural contextual term to refer to particular mode of burial or particular set of behavior which are reflected in artifact therefore sometime we may use the term megalith even if we are having a very small Monument so what exactly are Megalis Megalis are actually large monuments they were built of often rude undressed Stones sometime they were made of well dressed Stones interesting aspect is these monuments are found very prominently on the landscape sometime they are located on the hilltop and they look very attractive when you see from a far away distance obviously people were erecting these monuments as a kind of symbol on the landscape even today if you visit the rural India you can see a small kilog with a temple on top so similar kind of perspective was also common among the megalithic people most often they had decorated or they had planted burials on top of the hills especially the burial type called dolman was placed on top of the hill what you see here in this image is a dolman the dolman is resembling a table actually it looks like a table it was made of four slabs placed on the sides and one slab on top top the dolman also sometime has a hole which is called port hole which points to a specific Direction this kind of monuments were erected in different parts of the world what do you see here in this particular image is a rocket cave sometime people cut these kind of monuments underneath wherever they found suit able rocks especially in Kerala they used Lite to create this kind of Rocket caves these rocket caves are very unique and they are found only in Kerala what we understand here is that people were effectively using the locally available material for making their burials that in the iage we have lot of such evidence for variety of burial types in different parts of India wherever they had Rock they created these kind of burials Whenever there was no Rock they were using ceramic jars called ears or sarcophagus for making these burials therefore the burial types varied according to the local geology what are Megalis Megalis are funeral AR or other monuments of prehistoric culture these monuments were not only erected in prehistoric period they were also erected in the historical period even a few communities in the world are also erecting such monuments so Megalis were not just erected for funerary purpose alone sometime in northeastern India people erect these Monument to commemorate certain events therefore we we need to understand that these monuments were erected for several purposes the purpose depended according to the social or communities need megal is not a period as I mentioned earlier megalithic is also not just one culture megalithic cannot be seen as a cultural period it was not uh limited to one particular period maybe in India we could see this as as a cultural period but it is better to see the megalithic as a tradition as a way of treating the dead building a monument to honor or to commemorate the dead this tradition perhaps started in India even before the Neolithic times in some of the late harapan sites at davira for example we have certain burial monuments associated with stones perhaps the idea of megalithic burials in India may have started in the late harapan context the megalithic burial tradition is found all over India in the global context megaliths are found in many continents it seems that the megalithic tradition was followed in different times in different parts of the world we have evidence for the Megalis from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age and also in the in age it continued in the historical period also in certain Pockets it is practiced even today as you see in this particular image here the megalist can be very impressive on the landscape Megalis are a global phenomena they are found all over the world in this particular image you see The megalithic Monuments from Russia and irel land and France and India interestingly when you look at you can find lot of similarities they were all built using stones and mostly unrest Stone there is a beauty in these monuments just because they were built using unrest Stones as a result they produce a kind of beauty which is screwed in nature and it is more closer to Nature in fact people have inserted certain design but they did not modify the objects to a great extent perhaps this reflects the attitude and way of lives of the people in the early period Megalis can also be considered the earliest monuments of humankind you can see that these monuments were sometime erected for the dead we don't have any other Monument of such Antiquity some of the pmids are much older in date however they are also in a way associated with ferary Customs pyramids are a separate class of monuments erected for the Kings or fos in Egypt we can in a sense see that they are also a kind of Megalis although we don't consider them as part of Megalis but Megalis are in fact the earliest monuments to be made by human beings in different parts of the world that is why they have attracted the attention of Scholars for a long period of time it is believed that the only settled societies are capable of producing Surplus resources and they can only build such large monuments probably the megalithic monuments were built by the ear settled societies we have earliest evidence for the Megalis from the Neolithic context in Europe what do you see here in this image is the famous megalithic monument of Stonehenge found in England this is the most important megalithic monument in Europe it is a massive structure Megalis are also found in other countries of Europe we have menair menars which are actually tall sanding Stones sometime they resemble human figures occasionally and they are also very important features on the landscape the image that you see here they belong to France and similar mens are also found in India in India they are associated with the ferary architecture in later tradition these many years evolved into hero Stones which we find in large number in southern part of India mainly Karnataka Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu such hero Stones were erected in memory of the dead and people in later times inscribed their names and the activities of the heroes who lost their life perhaps in the prehistoric period too people erected these menir for such Heroes but we do not know because we don't have any evidence of script or we don't have any additional information on these menars of the prehistoric period another megalithic burial type which is found all over the world are Stone circles they simply collect the stones and plant them as a cir circle around the main structure which may be above the ground or partly below the ground or completely buried these are called Stone circles such Stone circles are found in large number in India in India these Stone circles were mainly erected for the dead people numerous Stone Circle sites are found in southern SP of India interestingly their shape and sometime size are very similar across the world canes are another type of monument in which within a stone circle they pile up large number of stones to form a monument what do you see here is a monument at new Grange in Ireland this is also an important megalithic Monument scholars believe this Monument has some astronomical significance this type of monuments are not found in India what we have in India are smaller cane circles which are very small in size covering about 10 to 30 ft in diameter more often occasionally these SK circles are larger in size in India another megalithic Monument is dolman as I said earlier dolman refers to a table like Monument they are also found frequently in different parts of India there are several variations in this type of Monument sometime they are completely above the ground sometime they are partly buried interestingly we see lot of similarities between the Dos of India as well as those found in Europe there are also other forms of monuments megalithic monuments found in different parts of India some of them are limited to a particular region what do you see in this image on the right side is a kakal or a monument which resembles the umbrella in the center we have a monument which is actually a rocket cave these two types of monuments are mainly found in Kerala on the left you have a stone circle so similar monuments are found in different parts of India but sometime some of the monuments are confined to one particular region maybe because of the cultural reason or the people found it easier to create these monuments in their area that is why we see lot of variations in the burial typology what you see here in this image is a monument from Egypt they are known as the eliest monument they are found at the site of napta paa they are erected somewhere between 7th millium and 4th millium BC these are perhaps the oldest megalithic monuments and interestingly they resemble some of the later period monuments that is why the ear Scholars considered that these ideas might have originated on one place in the world and might have diffused to different parts of the world this particular theory is known as diffusion Theory it is no longer accepted earlier Scholars attributed everything to Greek any of the important traits or any of the important cultural materials if they resemble and if they are found in earlier date Scholars said this particular cultural trade spread from this part to the other part of the world this is called a diffusion Theory now diffusion theory is not at all accepted by scholars in addition to the idea of diffusion we have to have lot of contextual and chronological evidence to understand or to propose the theory of diffusion therefore we need to be very careful when we say that this particular tradeit spread from this region to other region we need to be very extremely careful when we propose such hypothesis coming to the Megalis chronology we can see that they are distributed in a very vast time span if you look at the European megalist they belong to much earlier time in India we have Megalis mainly from the inage context that generally they post date 1500 BCE however the European megalist date to the Neolithic period and even to the Bronze Age they are generally dated between fourth Millenium to Second Millenium BC so therefore we can understand that Megalis were built in the Europe in a much earlier context perhaps because of this early occurrence Scholars felt the megalithic tradition might have spread from Europe to India or from the Mediterranean region into India these theories are no longer accepted each Society needs a particular type of Monument for a particular purpose only when there is a social need a particular type of artifact is used or a particular type of Monument is constructed therefore we need to understand like the way Iron was used according to the needs of the society these megalithic monuments were also used according to the needs of the society coming to the Megalis of India we have Megalis occurring from a early context to the modern context we have Megalis mainly found in southern parts of India we have higher concentration of megals in southern parts of India and generally these monuments are dated after 1500 BCE however the megalithic tradition continued in the historical period some of the megalithic monuments were built after the beginning of the Common Era or Christian era even today in northeastern India people erect megalithic monuments but they are not erected for the purpose of dead people they had different function Al together another important factor is the similarity of the megalithic forms this is what puzzled many of the scholars how can the megalithic forms can be so similar when separated by such a long distance that is why scholar try to argue for the diffusion Theory but if you look at human cognition and language we can very clearly understand that people can produce same kind of shapes in different parts of the world without without having any connection sometime words of same spelling are used for different purposes in various languages therefore we can understand that these monuments were created by modern humans that is homo sapiens that is why they have lot of similarity we should not be misled by this similarity to propose a theory that this idea spread from there or other idea came from the other area without really looking at the contextual and chronological data for any kind of interpretation this contextual and chronological and spatial data is very important if we have the burials located very close by we have a ground to argue about diffusion but if these burials are separated by vast time span as well as vast spatial distance we can't argue about diffusion archaeological students need to be very careful of this particular aspect of interpretation so as we see in this image we can notice that the dols are exactly alike though they are separated by several thousands of kilometers what it suggests is that people were thinking alike even though they were separated by several kilometers as I said the idea of circle can come to any individual by looking at moon or any other natural object similarly this kind of structure might have evolved independently in different parts of the world here what we see is the burial type of Stone Circle the idea of a circle need not be due to diffusion anybody can place stones in a circular fashion we get ideas about shapes from the natural world we look at the Moon which is very circular in shape even our eyeball is circular so naturally anybody can get the idea of round or Circle therefore there is no significant attached to the this kind of Sy similarity in Stone Circle this is another type of burial monument called alignment in this particular Monument what people do is to plant stones in a specific alignment we don't not know what exactly it means sometime it may have had astronomical significance again we need to undertake research to prove if it had any astronomical significance some time it might have represented several people who died in a battle or something we have no clear idea because we don't have any parallel written document to explain the function of these monuments Megalis and astronomy another most important and interesting area of research is Megalis and astronomy several Scholars tend to correlate the astronom iCal aspects with the megalithic burials however they may not be correct always just because one theory has been proposed in one part of the country we can't just take it and apply it to different parts of the world sometime in archaeological research this happens blindly a popular notion has emerged that many Megalis were built to study the heavens after studies claiming that megalist like Stonehenge wear sophisticated Hy PR astronomical observatories used to observe the Motions of heavenly bodies so we can't just take this idea and blindly apply to all the megalithic monuments in the world we need to really test the hypothesis to understand whether the prehistoric people really had the idea of astronomy when they created these monuments so we have to be very careful in our conclusions Megalis and astronomy we have the Stonehenge monuments which are often related to astronomical activities while it is true that the main axis of the monument was designed to face sunrise on summer Sal Stace day or sunset on winter salces day many of the other claims like Eclipse prediction Etc fail to pass modern tests of objectivity therefore many people can come up with new theories on the astronomical aspects of Stonehenge that may not be correct so we need to test a hypothesis only then we can accept again as we look into the modern art we can come up with our own interpretation similarly when we look at the archaeological monuments and object we can come up with the our own interpretations and explanation however the important point is whether the people of the past really had that particular idea in mind when they were constructing or the monuments are creating these artifacts India also we have certain research activities on the astronomical aspects of The megalithic Monuments today it is accepted that while megalithic monuments might incorporate already well-known astronomical alignments in their layout for symbolic and ritual purposes they cannot certainly be treated as astronomical observatories in this particular image from Megalis of Karnataka we can see the winter solsis sunset in between two megalithic monuments we do not know whether people intentionally created this Monument to fall on this particular occasion however there is a likelihood that they considered certain days as very important they might have chosen this particular day to erect these monument at a specific time sometime megalithic monuments are distinct in their typology these monuments are confined to to certain regions for example in Kerala we have certain peculiar megalithic monuments which are not reported elsewhere here in Kerala at the site of marayur we have a dolman occurring on top of a rock very adjacent to a hill it actually displays a beautiful landscape skitting probably these people were decorating their land escape and they were intensely placing these monuments on the hillocks possibly to Mark a territory the megalithic perals as territorial markers has been attempted in the europan context Colin renfu has considered that some of these monuments were intentionally placed in certain territories to Mark the boundaries probably it it is likely that some of the monuments in India were also erected at important points in Indian tradition people considered the junction of two points were important that is why you can see when the two rivers meet or two landscape meets people give lot of sacred significance for example people have the tradition of taking sacred bath at the kanyakumari where the two land points meet similarly you have lot of temples located on top of the hills why people located certain monuments on top of the hills in Indian tradition people gave lot of significance to the points that are located at several Junction the meeting of Two Rivers the meeting of river and the Sea the meeting of two Landscapes the meeting of two coastlines were considered very sacred perhaps the top of the hills were considered important that is why Indians even today Place their shrines or temples on top of the hills we have literary reference for considering these points as sacred probably the megalithic people also had significance to the tops and also these points or Junction that is why they placed some of their megalithic perals on top of the hills perhaps they also wanted to demarcate the territories and they wanted to own certain territories that is why they placed a particular burial or a megalithic monument on top of a hog even today in India it so happens certain villages they construct temples or other monuments in certain territories in order to gain access if a village builds a temple in a particular hilock or particular area that particular hillock or area becomes part of the village they in a way start controlling their territory perhaps similar idea existed among the megalithic tradition megalithic people of also in the in ag and El historic so far we had a overview of The megalithic Monuments across the world let's sum up some of the important points here we have seen that megaliths actually are burial monuments in some context in some context they were used for different purposes and again we saw in Europe The megalithic Monuments were constructed during the Neolithic and Bronze Age and in India generally they are found in ion AG context we also saw that some of the early evidence of Megalis can be traced back to the late harapan sites we also saw that Megalis are found all across Southern India where we find higher concentration of these megalithic monuments the again saw that we can't always argue about diffusion of the megalithic tradition because ideas can emerge independently probably the Indian megalithic tradition also emerged independently and at the same time some of the traits may have also come through contacts again we cannot have a single caal explanation for the development there could be multiple factors sometime there could be a development of these typology locally at the same time there could be some trades in some other regions of India that may have come from outside therefore we cannot have a single casual explanation for the development of Megalis in India we also saw that Megalis was not conf to a particular space or particular time it had multiple distribution so from this we clearly understand that megalithic tradition was used in different cultural and chronological context I hope you have a better understanding of the megalithic tradition across the world if you have any doubt or queries you can consult the eex and also so the PowerPoint presentation you may also consult the published literature and published articles to have a better understanding of these megalithic monuments these megalithic monuments are our heritage remains they are getting destroyed across the country we need to protect them so that they can be handed over to the future generation if you get a chance to meet somebody in the rural areas you can definitely educate about the importance of the Megalis and the rule they had in our society thank you