Ritual, settlement and land-use practices: Towards a social history of Neolithic though Medieval period Maski, southern India

Abstract

This article discusses the current outcomes of the Maski Archaeological Research Project (MARP), a multi-year investigation of the relationships among settlement and land-use practices, developing social differences and inequalities, and economic and ritual production in a 64 km2 study area in the Raichur District of Karnataka. Here we discuss the results of MARP's systematic pedestrian survey, remote sensing, salvage activities, and excavation, which include 46 radiocarbon assays from both prehistoric and historic period contexts. These dates document a long chronology of differential burial practices spanning the middle of the Neolithic Period to the early Iron Age, and a diversity of settlement and land-use activities practiced during the Medieval Period. These data speak to the social and political significance of these activities and point to the historically complex character of landscape and place-making practices within the long-term social history of the Raichur Doab.