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Local diversity in settlement, demography and subsistence across the southern Indian Neolithic-Iron Age transition: site growth and abandonment at Sanganakallu-Kupgal

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Abstract

The Southern Indian Neolithic-Iron Age transition demonstrates considerable regional variability in settlement location, density, and size. While researchers have shown that the region around the Tungabhadra and Krishna River basins displays significant subsistence and demographic continuity, and intensification, from the Neolithic into the Iron Age ca. 1200 cal. BC, archaeological and chronometric records in the Sanganakallu region point to hilltop village expansion during the Late Neolithic and ‘Megalithic’ transition period (ca. 1400–1200 cal. BC) prior to apparent abandonment ca. 1200 cal. BC, with little evidence for the introduction of iron technology into the region. We suggest that the difference in these settlement histories is a result of differential access to stable water resources during a period of weakening and fluctuating monsoon across a generally arid landscape. Here, we describe well-dated, integrated chronological, archaeobotanical, archaeozoological and archaeological survey datasets from the Sanganakallu-Kupgal site complex that together demonstrate an intensification of settlement, subsistence and craft production on local hilltops prior to almost complete abandonment ca. 1200 cal. BC. Although the southern Deccan region as a whole may have witnessed demographic increase, as well as subsistence and cultural continuity, at this time, this broader pattern of continuity and resilience is punctuated by local examples of abandonment and mobility driven by an increasing practical and political concern with water.

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Acknowledgments

This research was funded through grants from the British Academy, the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research to NB; the Clarendon Fund to PR; the Natural Environmental Research Council and the Leverhulme Trust to DQF; and Karnatak University to RK. GIS modelling was coded by FS whose work is supported by a Natural Environment Research Council Grant awarded to DF on ‘The impact of evolving rice systems from China to Southeast Asia’ (NE/K003402/1).

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  1. Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, Dyson Perrins Building, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3QY, UK

    Patrick Roberts, Nicole Boivin & Michael Petraglia

  2. Headland Archaeology Ltd., 13 Jane Street, Leith, Edinburgh, EH6 5HE, UK

    Paul Masser

  3. University of the Arts London, 272 High Holborn, London, WC1V 7EY, UK

    Stephanie Meece

  4. Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 31-34 Gordon Square, London, WC1H 0PY, UK

    Alison Weisskopf, Fabio Silva & Dorian Q Fuller

  5. Department of History and Archaeology, Karnatak University, Dharwad, 580-003, India

    Ravi Korisettar

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Roberts, P., Boivin, N., Petraglia, M. et al. Local diversity in settlement, demography and subsistence across the southern Indian Neolithic-Iron Age transition: site growth and abandonment at Sanganakallu-Kupgal. Archaeol Anthropol Sci 8, 575–599 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-015-0240-9

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