Context: Recently, the State Department of Archaeology, Chennai has identified 250 cairn-circles from the Kodumanal excavation site in Erode district of Tamilnadu.
Key Points

• The Kodumanal excavation of 10 pots and bowls, instead of the usual three or four pots, placed outside three-chambered burial cists and inside the cairn-circle, has thrown light on burial rituals and the concept of afterlife in megalithic culture.
• The rectangular chambered cists, each two metres long and six metres wide, are made of stone slabs, and the entire grave is surrounded by boulders that form the circle.
• Believing that the deceased person will get a new life after death, pots and bowls filled with grains were placed outside the chambers.
• Previous excavations have revealed that multi-ethnic groups lived in the village, located about 500 metres away from the Noyyal river.
• Earlier excavations also revealed that the site served as a trade-cum-industrial centre from 5th century BCE to 1st century BCE.
• Findings unearthed so far include an animal skull, possibly of a wolf or a dog; precious stones like beryl, carnelian, quartz, jasper, beads, gold pieces and needles; copper smelting units; the mud walls of a workshop; potteries; and Tamil Brahmi script.

Additional Facts

• Cairn-circles are the prehistoric stone row which is a linear arrangement of parallel megalithic standing stones.
• A megalith is a large prehistoric stone that has been used to construct a structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones.
• Megalithic Culture: It is a large prehistoric stone culture that lasted from the Neolithic Stone Age to the early Historical Period (2500 BC to AD 200) across the world.
• In India, archaeologists trace the majority of the megaliths to the Iron Age (1500 BC to 500 BC) though some sites precede the Iron Age extending up to 2000 BC.
• India: Megaliths are spread across the peninsular India concentrated in the states of Maharashtra (mainly in Vidarbha), Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
• Purpose: They were constructed as burial sites or as commemorative (non-sepulchral) memorials.
• Burial Sites: These are actual burial remains such as dolmenoid cists (box-shaped stone burial chambers), cairn circles (stone circles with defined peripheries) and capstones (distinctive mushroom-shaped burial chambers found mainly in Kerala).
• Non-sepulchral megaliths: These include memorial sites such as menhirs.
• Menhir is the name used in Western Europe for a single upright stone erected in prehistoric times sometimes called a standing stone.
• Kodumanal: It is a village located in the Erode district in Tamil Nadu.It is located on the northern banks of Noyyal River, a tributary of the Cauvery.
• Significance: It was once a flourishing ancient trade city known as Kodumanam as inscribed in Pathitrupathu of Sangam Literature.

Literary sources

• Megalithic culture finds several references in ancient Tamil Sangam literature. For instance, menhirs are referred to as nadukal.
• Ancient Sangam texts lay out, in detail, a step-by-step procedure for laying a memorial stone or nadukal in honour of a fallen hero.
• Manimekalai (5th century AD), the famous Sangam epic, refers to the various kinds of burials namely cremation , post excarnation burial, burying the deceased in a pit , rock chamber or cist burial , urn burial encapped with lid.
• Even in the Sangam age (when kingship and a well-ordained society had emerged) the above modes of burials survived.