Kishor Basa, Rabindra Mohanty & Simadri Ota (ed.). Megalithic traditions in India: archaeology and ethnography.

Pearson, Mike Parker

Kishor Basa, Rabindra Mohanty & Simadri Ota (ed.). Megalithic traditions in India: archaeology and ethnography (2 volumes). 2015. 1x+817 pages, numerous b&w illustrations. Bhopal: Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya; 978-81-7305-544-7 hardback.

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These two volumes provide a welcome synthesis of Indian megalith studies, past and present, focused principally on the Megalithic culture of India's Iron Age. At its heart are a series of chapters examining the archaeological, chronological, technological, environmental, subsistence and funerary dimensions of the different regional manifestations of the peninsula's Megalithic culture. These are joined by other chapters investigating pre-iron Age mortuary practices from the Harappan and other periods, and by chapters examining post-iron Age funerary-related architecture. The second part of the second volume includes many studies of ethnographic and ethnohistorical cases of megalith-building that provide a useful counterpoint to the prehistoric case studies. There is also a comparative study of first-millennium BC megaliths in South Korea, which shows that similar architectural forms such as dolmens may occur in different parts of the world.

India's Megalithic culture is, as Sundara reminds us in the book's introductory address, a broad culture-history periodisation that includes black and red ware ceramics and architecturally varied funerary monuments, dating broadly from the fifteenth century BC until the first century AD. The contributors to this volume recognise, however, that there is sufficient regionalism in material culture and subsistence to indicate that the term 'Megalithic culture' has outlived its usefulness as an explanatory concept. Not only are there regions within the Megalithic culture without megaliths, but the overall culture concept fails to work as a catch-all for this long period of prehistory from the inception of ironworking to the early historic period. Old debates about the pastoralist vs agriculturalist emphasis of this supposed monolithic cultural formation are also shown to be hopelessly simplistic. For example, chapters on plant remains and subsistence by Moorti, and Cooke and Fuller, reveal just how regionally variable and complex are the subsistence practices and the range of crops cultivated, even though both studies emphasise how much additional palaeobotanical research is needed.

Of all the book's 41 chapters, I was principally interested in the ethnographic and ethnohistorical accounts of megaliths from a variety of Indian regions. While the vast majority of Iron Age megaliths are tombs or have funerary associations, the ethnographies provide a more nuanced and socially informed context that will be of special interest to those concerned with the social dimensions of megalith-building and use in both prehistoric and more recent societies around the world. There are fascinating accounts of the sequences of labour mobilisation, feasting and rituals that accompany the erection of megaliths, as well as useful observations on the numbers of people involved, the sequences of activities and the logistics from quarry to place of installation. Explanations of the meanings of these megaliths provide full documentation of their role in the commemoration of the dead and other ancestor-related forms of remembrance.

There is no doubt that this is a ground-breaking synthesis. Its chapters on ethnography, as well as on aspects such as funerary practices, technology and subsistence, will also attract a wider readership. The hard covers and colour dust jacket show high production values in the volumes' appearance that are not matched by the rather grainy quality of the black and white images inside. Similarly, although the English-language text throughout makes this volume accessible to archaeologists around the world, the standard of the written English is highly variable and would have benefited from closer editing. For those unfamiliar with the geography of India, a map of the regions covered by each of the chapters would also have been useful. Nonetheless, there is much of value here for a broad range of students of South Asian and world prehistory, and of the archaeology of megaliths more generally.

doi: 10.15184/aqy.2016.8

Mike Parker Pearson

Institute of Archaeology, University College London, UK

(Email: m.parker-pearson@ucl.ac.uk)