Pottery and Iron age Megaliths belonging to the pre-Megalithic Period discovered in Tamil Nadu

Pottery and iron age megaliths dated to the pre-Megalithic/Iron Age period in T.N. — 1,800 BC-1,500 BC found at Mandapam village, near Aarpakkam intersection, about 14 km from Kancheepuram in April 2012.

The importance of the vast urn-burial site is that it belongs to a period earlier than the Megalithic Age or Iron Age in Tamil Nadu.
The site has been ravaged by quarrying for blue-metal.

Villager P. Mani, who discovered the site, reported it to V. Arasu, Head of the Department of Tamil, University of Madras, and S. Elango, lecturer in Tamil, Madras University.

The flat/conical bottomed urns were buried only one or two feet below the soil surface. While some had ritual pottery and terracotta plates inside, others were empty. There were disintegrated human bones in several urns. Also, there were no cairn circles on the surface of the graves to mark them. There were no graffiti marks on the urns either.

It was discovered that the cairn circles or the big stones, i.e., liths, were placed in a circle on the surface of the soil and urns were kept below them. The urns were found to have been kept inside cists, which are compartments made of granite slabs. Since big stones/liths mark the urn burials below, they are called Megalithic Age burials.

The Iron Age and the Megalithic Age are contemporaneous in south India. Archaeologists believed the Iron Age in south India extended from 1000 BCE to 300 BCE.