ASI report on Keeladi throws fresh date on its existence

Keeladi’s fertile nature of land played a vital role in its evolution as an animal-based economy focussing on cattle and sheep goat herding, paving the way for excess production of rice and sea-fare trading of the inhabitants, the ASI has said, while deriving the period of the Sangam-era archaeological site to be between 8th century BCE to 3rd century CE.

In a 982-page detailed report, the Archaeological Survey of India says it arrived at the above-mentioned period based on results of stratigraphy of the cultural deposits found during the first two phases of the excavations between 2014 and 2016 in Keeladi along with AMS dates.

Also Read: ASI submits 982-page report on Keeladi excavations

Submitted to ASI DG V Vidyavathi on Monday by K Amarnath Ramakrishna, the Superintending Archaeologist who led the excavations before he was transferred out in 2017, the report is yet to be made public. However, DH has reliably learnt that the voluminous report consists of 12 chapters with detailed phytolith and pollen analyses among others by domain experts.

Over 18,000 artefacts, including 5,800 from the first two phases, have so far been unearthed from Keeladi where excavations are likely to enter the ninth season this month. The report also says the habitation deposit of the mound suggests that Keeladi is a unicultural site with different phases of cultural unit, sources said.

AMS dating and period of the site

While the Accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dating of 23 artefacts established their age to be 300 CE, the archaeologists also depended on other datable source materials such as the stratified cultural deposits and its associated materials like floral phytoliths and faunal remains to arrive at the expanded chronological sequence of Keeladi, 12 km southeast of Madurai.

“We have derived the period of Keeladi to be between 8th century BCE to 3rd century CE,” Ramakrishna told DH, refusing to reveal details of the report.

“The findings in the report are from a mere 2 percent of the area that we excavated out of the 110-acre land identified for digging. Keeladi could have existed much earlier than the above period, but we should keep digging. Continuous excavation in Keeladi is key to reconstruct the hoary past and historicity of Tamil Nadu,” Ramakrishna added.

The findings are very significant as the period of Keeladi’s existence arrived at by the ASI is at least two centuries older than the 6th century date which threw up in the AMS dating of an artefact found in the fourth phase of excavations by the Tamil Nadu State Department of Archaeology in 2018.

The ASI report is set to revive the debate whether Keeladi is linked to the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) though experts outside Tamil Nadu rule out any connection between the two. Archaeologists in TN say the dating of 585 BCE in Keeladi and 1155 BCE in Sivakalai by TNSDA have narrowed down the gap between IVC and Tamil settlements and it will reduce further if large scale excavations are taken up in south India.

Also Read: Tamil Nadu plans archaeological excavations in 8 locations this year

Arabian horse and excess production of rice

Another significant finding, according to sources, is the identification of a domestic horse from Keeladi which are scarcely found in southern India with the report suggesting that it could be an Arabian horse imported through sea fare trade by ancient Tamils, a rich reference of which is found in Sangam literature’s Pattinapaalai.

Pollen analyses of samples from Keeladi found that excess production of rice contributed to the growth of the urban city while fertile land played “an active role” for the evolution of the habitation. The excess production of rice prompted the settlers to set sail in the seas to far-away land that are chronicled in several literature – the main focus of the digging is to find archaeological evidence for the Sangam Corpus.

Quoting an analysis by Dr K Anupama of the French Institute, Pondicherry, the report talks about palm being found at the lowest level of excavation (4.5 metres) making it the indigenous variety of the region and notes that oyzoid husks and barnyard grass husks were highest in comparison to other varieties.

In her findings, Dr Arati Deshpande of the prestigious Deccan College, Pune said identification of the domestic horse is significant as it has been scarcely reported from South Indian historic sites and recently it was identified in the historic site of Gottiprolu in Andhra Pradesh.

Dr Deshpande has opined, after studying the assemblage, that Keeladi was a strong animal-based economy focused on cattle and sheep goat herding revealed a wide range of animals exploited by inhabitants like cattle, buffalo, sheep, goat, pigs, and dogs, the sources added.

Composition of the report

The period was arrived at not merely based on AMS dating but also from other datable associated materials like ceramics, floral phytoliths, artefacts, structures, and faunal remains.

The findings by the ASI team led by Ramakrishna and including analyses by domain experts carry a lot of weight as it was the same agency which explicitly announced in 2017 that the third phase yielded no “significant finding”. By then, Ramakrishna was transferred to Assam and only after an intervention from the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court, the TNSDA was asked to take over the excavations from the fourth phase.

The ASI report, which contains detailed photographs and diagrams of the trenches, has 12 chapters that explains the historical background and objective of the excavation, besides dwelling into the structural remains, potteries, graffiti shreds, terracotta objects, and different types of coins that were found during the excavations from 2014 to 2016.

Over a dozen varieties of potteries and decorated potteries, including black and red ware, red slipped ware, perforated ware, applique decoration, jackfruit design, and incised decoration were unearthed during the excavations along with terracotta beads, glass beads, shell beads, ivory beads, and pearl beads.

Terracotta objects like human and animal figurines, pendants, ivory objects, metal objects, glass objects, and stone objects were also found buried deep inside the earth. The sources also said the report also contains scientific studies and characterization of silver punch marked coins and copper coins found from the site is also included in the voluminous book.

Keeladi and why IVC link is brought up?

Archaeologists who worked in Keeladi at different times say they have collected overwhelming evidence of industries based on beads and terracotta having existed in Keeladi in the past eight years. These artefacts throw ample hints about the trade ties between inhabitants of Keeladi and other countries in the form of coins and other items.

The findings from Keeladi in the past eight years have laid to rest the long-held conviction that the Tamil land had no ancient urban civilisation with the unearthing of silver-punch marked coins with designs of sun, moon, and a bull has established trade links between the inhabitants here and present-day north India. The AMS dating in 2019 had made Keeladi contemporaneous with the Gangetic Plains Civilisation.

The theory positing a Dravidian link to the IVC is not new. Well-known epigraphist and former civil servant Iravatham Mahadevan opined that the IVC was inhabited by Dravidians who spoke a Dravidian language and that they migrated down south, though his views are widely contested due to the lack of enough evidence.

Way back in 1939, then ASI Director-General K N Dikshit wrote he believed that a “thorough investigation” in Tirunelveli district and the neighbouring regions will one day lead to the discovery of some site which “would be contemporary with or even little later than the Indus civilisation.”

Indology expert R Balakrishnan’s critically acclaimed Journey of a Civilization: Indus to Vaigai published in 2019 also speaks about a possible link between IVC and Tamil settlements. The book explains what might have happened to the culture and language of the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) after it disintegrated.

Balakrishnan believes Keeladi has thrown up “striking similarities” with IVC not just in terms of long-distance trade links but much beyond, connected to the core ideologies and attitudes towards life.

However, several archaeologists don’t agree with this theory saying there was a “vast gap” between Keeladi and IVC and that there is absolutely no connection.