Difference between Huntering and gathering for food in Tamil Nadu before and after British rule .
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Explanation:
Explanation:
THE PLEISTOCENE-HoLOCENE TRANSITION witnessed several significant modifications in human adaptation patterns, including a shift to microlithic implements,
small-game hunting and gathering, and a highly mobile lifestyle in several parts
of the world. The term Mesolithic is widely used to denote this cultural period,
which succeeded the Palaeolithic and preceded the emergence of an agropastoral way oflife (the Neolithic). The transformation from hunting-gathering (the
Mesolithic) to agropastoralism (the Neolithic) that took place in certain territories
during the early Holocene was not a universal phenomenon, but a localized one.
It is a gradual process that has been going on for several millennia worldwide.
Evidence for Mesolithic and post-Mesolithic hunter-gatherers occurs extensively in different parts of world including South Asia. In India, from the 1880s
when A.C.L. Carlleyle discovered the first microliths in the Vindhyan hills (Misra
1965: 58), several microlithic sites of the Mesolithic period have been brought
to light (Allchin and Allchin 1983: 62-96; Misra 1965, 1989). The survival of
microlith-using groups, primarily subsisting on hunting and gathering and their
interactions with agropastoral communities of the protohistoric and historical
periods have been recognized in archaeological context in several areas like
Rajasthan, Gujarat, Central India, and Andhra Pradesh (Allchin 1977; Allchin and
Allchin 1974; Hooja 1988; Jacobson 1970,1975; Misra 1973,1976; Murty 1989;
Stiles 1993).
Recent investigations in the hitherto archaeologically unexplored region of
southern Tamil Nadu have exposed a wide spectrum of evidence for human
occupation during the Mesolithic and the Iron Age-Early Historic periods (Selvakumar 1996, 1997, 2000). Based on these findings, this paper discusses the adaptation patterns of the hunter-gatherer groups, which occupied the Gundar Basin
(Madurai district of Tamil Nadu) from the early Holocene to the end of the Early
Historic period, i.e., up to c. A.D. 500.
The term Iron Age here refers to the period that falls between the introduction
V. Selvakumar is a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Archaeology, Deccan College, Pune,
India.
Asia" Perspettives, Vol. 4 t. No.1 © 2002 by University of Haw.Ji'i Press.
72 ASIAN PERSPECTIVES . 41 (I) . SPRING 2002
of iron and the beginning of the Early Historic period. In South India, the Iron
Age is placed within a tentative time bracket of c. 1000 to 300 B.C., and the Early
Historic period, between c. 300 B.C. and c. A.D. 500 (Allchin and Allchin 1983).
THE STUDY AREA: ENVIRONMENTAL BACKGROUND
This study focuses on an area of about 400 km2 (between 77° 35' to 77° 55' E
and 9° 40' to 9° 55' N), in the upper Gundar Basin, which occupies the western
part of the Madurai district of Tamil N adu (Figs. 1-2). The Varushanad-Andipatti
hills, an offshoot of the Western Ghats, and its branches, the Chaturagiri and
the Kudiraimalai (or the Vasimalai), enclose the area respectively, on the western,
southern, and northern sides. The basin has a gneissic base intruded by Charnockite and Khondalite groups of rocks (HBG 1976) and is drained by the
seasonal river Gundar and its tributaries, the Varattar and the Uppar. It can be
divided into two physiographic zones, the plains with a varying altitude of 150 to
250 m above mean sea level (hereafter, AMSL) scattered with a few isolated hillocks, and the hilly tracts, which cover the area above 250 m AMSL. The climate
of the area falls between semi-arid and sub-humid types with an annual average
precipitation of around 900 mm. Most of the rainfall occurs during the northeast
monsoon season (October to December) and a small amount in summer (April
to May). The ombrothermic diagram for the meteorological station at Madurai,
situated 50 km northeast of the basin, shows two dry seasons separated by wet
seasons (Gaussen et al. 1964).
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