Aryan Books

EXPLORING SOUTH ASIAN PAST: Prof. K. Paddayya Festschrift

Edited By :- V. Selvakumar , S.K. Aruni , Hemant Dave

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Type: English

Pages: 664

Format: Hard Bound

ISBN-13: 978-81-7305-735-9

Edition: 1st

Publisher: ARYAN BOOKS INTERNATIONAL

Size: 16cm x 24cm

Product Year: 2025

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History and archaeology have become part of dynamic, active public discourse in more recent times, with the developments of heritagization, museumization, IT revolution and social media interventions. These subjects emerged as professional disciplines in South Asia with the combination of theoretical advancements and debates, social and community engagements and field-based investigations by innumerable researchers, fieldworkers, antiquarians and public historians/archaeologists in the twentieth century. Ideas from these disciplines have shaped the making of modern and contemporary India in the colonial and post-colonial contexts. Twenty-one research articles in this book, presented to one of the foremost archaeologists of our times, Professor K. Paddayya, who has significantly contributed to the advancement of archaeological theory and research, examine South Asian history from a cross-disciplinary and pluralistic perspective. The articles deliberate on the material culture and technological formations and the dynamics of prehistoric hunter-gatherers to the food-producing Neolithic economies. They dwell on the material culture of the Harappan civilisation to the concepts of “rural” and “urban” in medieval historical contexts. They also concentrate on a nuanced discussion on the megalithic settlements and funerary practices, and the second urbanisation, cities, ports, and long-distance trade. The papers explore diverse themes from challenging the opinion that Ayodhyā was not a real city to understanding the political nuances of how heritage – tangible and intangible – is constructed. This book takes on many important issues, including curation of heritage, archaeological theory and praxis, meanings and contexts of rock art and terracotta sculptures, and morphological study of Cercopithecidae remains from Late Pleistocene-Early Holocene Sri Lanka. These articles, based on new data, fresh interpretations, and engaging discussion, make the book an important contribution to the South Asian past and a fitting tribute to the academic contributions of Professor K. Paddayya.

Foreword

Preface

Professor Katragadda Paddayya

1. Introduction: Facets of South Asian Past from Pluralistic
Perspectives

V. Selvakumar, S.K. Aruni and Hemant Dave

2. Celt Grinding Sites in Raichur: The Economy of Dolerite Tool
Production in Southern Neolithic Culture

R. Arjun

3. Rise of Early Urban Centres in Karnataka: an Appraisal

S.K. Aruni

4. Re-thinking Heritage: Creating a New Sense of the Past?

Bishnupriya Basak

5. Old World links of Ancient Tamizhakam as revealed
through Pattanam Archaeological Evidence 102

P. J. Cherian

6. Funerary Practices through the Ages in Tamil Nadu:
A Study of Texts, Traditions and Burials

S.B. Darsana

7. Apropos of Ayodhyā

Hemant Dave

8. Conceptualising ‘Rural’: Linkages, Settlement Hierarchy and
Urbanization in the Early Medieval Shorapur-Doab

Suchi Dayal

9. Urbanization in Coastal West Bengal

Kaushik Gangopadhyay

10. The Curation of a National Archaeological Heritage:
With Notes from the National Museum, New Delhi

Sudeshna Guha

11. Looking beyond the Stone Structures of the Iron
Age–Early Historic Burials

Smirti Haricharan

12. Rethinking Northeast Indian Prehistory: Reappraisal to an
Old Problem

Tiatoshi Jamir, Marco Mitri and Tilok Thakuria

13. Archaeological Perceptions and Practices: Viewing a Harappan
Object Over Time

Jaya Menon

14. Problems and Prospects of Management of Prehistoric Sites in
India with a Focus on Odisha

Debasis Kumar Mondal and Ranjana Ray

15. Taking the Middle Path: Understanding the ‘Early’ Middle
Palaeolithic of South Asia and Its Relationship with the
Preceding Late Acheulean

Yezad Pardiwalla and Parth R. Chauhan

16. ‘Etched’, ‘Bleached’ or ‘Decorated’ Carnelian Beads?
A Reassessment of the Terminology of a Special Category of
Agate-Carnelian Beads from the Harappan Civilization

V.N. Prabhakar

17. Rock Paintings at Wyndham Falls, Mirzapur Vindhyas,
Uttar Pradesh

Ajay Pratap, Anand P. Pathak, Rajeev Pratap, Nawal Kumar
and Ruman Banerjee

18. Molars of Tropical Rainforests: Lingual-Labial Axis of
Cercopithecidae Molars as an Index of Ecologies, Dietary
Patterns, and Species Overlap during Late Pleistocene
to Early Holocene in Sri Lanka

Kalangi Rodrigo and Wijerathne Bohingamuwa

19. Issues in the Meaning and Identification of
Archaeological Cultures

V. Selvakumar

20. Early Historic Terracotta of West Bengal: An Overview

Gautam Sengupta

21. Shifting Time Frames: From Deep History to Archaeology
of the Contemporary Past

Supriya Varma

22. Archaeological Investigations in the Lower Tungabhadra
Region of Andhra Pradesh

P.C. Venkatasubbaiah

Contributors

V. Selvakumar has researched on prehistory, early history, heritage management and Indian Ocean interactions. He is a faculty member in the Department of Maritime History and Marine Archaeology, and the coordinator of the Centre for Indian Ocean Studies at Tamil University, Thanjavur, India.

S.K. Aruni has researched early history, medieval history, local history and archaeology of South India. He is Deputy Director at the Southern Regional Centre of the Indian Council of Historical Research, Bangalore, India.

Hemant Dave has researched ancient Indian textual traditions and archaeology, historiography, historical linguistics, and Sanskrit aesthetics. He is a professor of history at Sardar Patel University, Vallabh Vidyanagar, Gujarat, India.

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