Problem of Megaliths in India (An Old and Rare Book)

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Ever since the first discovery of the megalithic remains in the fifties of the last century, these monuments have attracted the explorer's attention from time to time. The first careful and systematic study of these monuments was made by James Fergusson in 1872. Since then hundreds of megalithic sites and graves were located and a few of them opened both by professionals and amateurs for well over a century but the culture could not be placed in its proper perspective. The standardization of the megalithic terminology by Krishnaswami in 1945 and the excavations of Sir Mortimer Wheeler at Brahmagiri in 1947 proved to be of far reaching importance and added new dimensions to this vexed problem. Since then, careful excavations of several mega- lithic sites in south India by the Archaeological Survey of India and some Universities have added valuable data to our knowledge. How- ever, megalithic remains in north and north-western India, although discovered quite early, could not receive our attention. It was in this background that the Universities of Banaras and Allahabad started exploring the megaliths of the Vindhyan range and the Archaeological Survey devoted its attention on the megalithic site of Bunzahom in Kashmir. The recent work in the Andhra Karnatak region and the C-14 determinations of archaeological samples from various sites of this culture provided new data and it was increasingly felt by scholars in the field to discuss the ramifications of such discoveries.

Such an opportunity was provided by the formation of the Indian Archaeological Society and at the time of the first annual Archaeological Congress in the first week of February, 1968, the Department of Ancient Indian History, Culture and Archaeology organised the seminar on the "Problem of Megaliths in India'.

The topics were allotted to different workers in the field but as the seminar was held at short notice, some of the contributors could not send their papers. None-the-less, the seminar was attended by leading anthropologists like Prof D.K. Sen and Prof. L.P. Vidyarthi and eminent Indologists.