MEGALITHS - SOCIAL DIFFERENCES

Megaliths: Stone boulders, literally big stones

  • Megaliths were carefully arranged by the people to mark burial sites.

  • The practice of erecting megaliths began about 3000 years ago.
  • It was prevalent
    •  throughout the Deccan
    •  South India
    •  in the north-east
    •  Kashmir
MEGALITH SITES
  • CIST: have port-holes used as an entrance

                      CIST

  • Some megaliths can be seen on the surface other megalithic burials are underground
    • Indications that there were burials beneath
      • Sometimes a circle of stone boulders
      • A single large stone

COMMON FEATURES OF THE BURIALS:

  • The dead buried with distinctive pots
    • Red ware
    • Black ware
  • Tools and weapons of iron
  • Skeletons of horses
  • Horse equipment
  • Ornaments of stone and gold

Iron equipment found from megalithic burials

SOCIAL DIFFERENCES:

  • Archaeologists think that the personal belongings were kept along the skeletons in the burials
  • Sometimes more objects were in one grave than the others which shows the social differences amongst the people of that time.
    • In Brahmagiri, one skeleton was buried with
      • 33 gold beads
      • 2 stone beads
      • 4 copper bangles
      • 1 conch shell
    • Other skeleton have only few pots
  •  Some were rich,others poors, some chiefs and others followers.
  • Some burial spots meant for certain families- more than one skeleton
    • People of the same family buried in the same place but in different periods
    • Those who died later, their bodies brought into the graves through the portholes
    • Stone circles or boulders served as Signposts to mark the burial sites.
    • So that people could return to the same place whenever they wanted to.