Beyond culture history at Maski: Land use, settlement and social differences in Neolithic through Medieval South India

Abstract

The multicomponent site of Maski in northern Karnataka has long held a central position in the culture-historic narratives of archaeologists and historians alike. Yet since B.K. Thapar's correlation of archaeological deposits at Maski with Wheeler's culture history sequence in the 1950s, archaeological research at Maski has been largely absent. Our research at Maski has sought to build upon this important chronological foundation, expanding our understanding of late prehistoric social life by asking questions and collecting data that explore the entanglements of settlement, social life, land use and craft production during the South Indian Iron Age and Early Historic Periods. To date we have completed three seasons of archaeological survey in a 64km2 area centered on the site of Maski and recoded 153 sites and numerous concentrations of “off-site” artifacts that are revealing temporally sensitive material patterning from which we can begin to address these objectives. Here we present preliminary patterns for Neolithic (3000–1200BC), Iron Age (1200–300BC), Early Historic (300BC–AD500), and Medieval (AD500–1600) period materials in the region. The results of the survey so far have documented significant temporally sensitive changes in the size, location, and distribution of settlement, metal production activities, agro-pastoral land use, and mortuary interments that point towards historical developments in regional land-use and socio-political practices.