Muthamizh Arignar Kalaignar Centenary National Seminar On- Reflections on Cultural Development: An Archaeological Perspective Proceedings

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Culture and traditions play a fascinating and constructing role in the formation of a cultural landscape. In general, culture is being considered as embodiment of beliefs, customs, traditions, ethical and moral values of a particular social group. These cultural items evolved over the years and are conditioned by the geographical settings and the availability of natural resources at their disposal. Every culture has a wonderful capacity of assimilating the inflow of other traditions and beliefs which directly or indirectly influencing and shaping their thoughts and actions. The value based traditions continue to influence their way of life over the years and it is get reflected as a matter of cultural development. The cultural development of a region cannot be seen in isolation rather it could be observed as reflection of contemporary society. To understand the cultural development of a region, one needs to understand the cultural activities of other contemporary societies as the past and present is interwoven. To understand the cultural development that had taken place in different parts of India, Tamil Nadu State Department of Archaeology is organized a Two-days National Seminar on Reflections on Cultural Development: An Archaeological Perspective in commemoration of Muththamizh Arignar Kalaignar Centenary Celebrations. The former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu Muththamizh Arignar Kalaignar dedicated his entire life to the development of Tamil society andhis contributions to the Tamil language and literature are immense and immeasurable. Thus, the Government deems it fit to celebrate his 100th year by organising academic sessions.

Scholars from different parts of India have been invited to share their valuable knowledge by interacting with their counterparts, particularly the scholars from Tamil Nadu. This academic exercise is to understand the nature of archaeological material unearthed in Tamil Nadu for the past a decade and to estimate the cultural value of the material.

Government of Tamil Nadu is taking every effort to reconstruct the past, particularly the history and culture of Tamil Nadu on scientific lines through multi-disciplinary approach. The Department is not leaving any area of research unattended. The focus is more on inter-disciplinary aspects of archaeology, epigraphy. numismatics, literature, historical linguistics, art, architecture, iconography. physical and cultural anthropology, aDNA, palaeo-botany, archaeo-zoology. metallurgy, GIS and many other areas of research.

We are so grateful to various internationally reputed scientific Laboratories such as Indian Institute of Technology (Gandhi Nagar), Indian Institute of Science (Bangalore), BSIP (Lucknow), Physical Research Laboratory (Ahmedabad). Agargar Research Institute (Pune), Archaeological Survey of India, Deccan College (Pune), Central and State Universities, Indra Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research at Kalpakkam, National Institute of Advance Studies (Bangalore) and many other institutions of India and abroad.

In commemoration of the centenary celebration of the Muthamizh Arignar Kalaignar, Tamil Nadu State Department of Archaeology has been organizing various events such as essay writing competition for the school students of Tamil Nadu, State, National and International level Seminars for the eminent scholars and researchers in the field of Tamil, History and Archaeology.

State Level Seminar had been conducted on 21st and 22nd September, 2023 at Tamil University, Thanjavur. Nearly, 70 articles were presented by the scholars in the Seminar. The articles were published during the seminar itself as a Proceedings titled "History of Tamil Nadu as gleaned from recent researches".

At present, the department has arranged a National Seminar on "Reflections on Cultural Development: An Archaeological Perspective" on 22nd and 23rd November, 2023 at Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai. The articles of the eminent scholars, researches and students are compiled and published as Proceedings during the seminar.