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Books by Peter Johansen
The Archaeology of Politics: The Materiality of Political Practice and Action in the Past
Papers by Peter Johansen
A political economy of space: Social organization and the production of an Iron Age settlement landscape in northern Karnataka
... Indexes of the surface Ceramic Assemblage at Rampuram 325 Figure 7.10a: Orifice Diameters fro... more ... Indexes of the surface Ceramic Assemblage at Rampuram 325 Figure 7.10a: Orifice Diameters from Jars in the Sheet Rock Terrace 337 ... Noah Thomas has also been a great friend and his intelligence, encouragement and humor over the years during New Mexican summers in ...
Antiquity
Human burials have been recovered from a wide variety of intra- and extramural settlement context... more Human burials have been recovered from a wide variety of intra- and extramural settlement contexts at Neolithic period sites (3000–1200 BC) in southern India, yet formal cemeteries remain virtually unknown from this period. Research at MARP-79 in the Raichur District of the south Indian state of Karnataka, near the type-site of Maski, documents a large Neolithic cemetery, now with the largest number of radiometrically dated burials of any archaeological site in southern India. The cemetery demonstrates considerable, previously undocumented variation in mortuary ritual, involving new materials, technologies and burial practices, which challenge culture-historical models, pointing instead towards long-term incremental developments that alter how we understand the emergence of Neolithic social differences.
The politics and historicity of megalithic places in early South India
Journal of Social Archaeology
This paper considers the intersections of memorialization practices and politics throughout a per... more This paper considers the intersections of memorialization practices and politics throughout a period of emergent social differentiation during the Neolithic and Iron Age periods in the Deccan region of southern India. Rather than focus on how mortuary architecture and grave assemblages might correlate with the status, rank, or class of the deceased individuals—as has often been suggested—we place emphasis on how mortuary practices and the production of megalithic places contributed to the establishment and maintenance of social collectives among living communities. More specifically, we identify at least two modes of political practice associated with megalithic production in prehistoric South India: one related to the constitution of collectives of labor and shared consumption activities involved in the process of making monuments; and a second related to the material legacy of monuments in constituting cultural and historical places of social affiliation. In making these arguments...
Changing Cultural Landscapes of the Tungabhadra Valley, South India
University of Arizona Press eBooks, Sep 13, 2022
Ritual, settlement and land-use practices: Towards a social history of Neolithic though Medieval period Maski, southern India
Archaeological Research in Asia
Akira Shimada and Michael Willis, eds, <em>Amaravati: The Art of an Early Buddhist Monument... more Akira Shimada and Michael Willis, eds, <em>Amaravati: The Art of an Early Buddhist Monument in Context</em> (London: British Museum, 2016).
The Archaeology of Politics: The Materiality of Political Practice and Action in the Past
The Archaeology of Politics is a collection of essays that examines political action and practice... more The Archaeology of Politics is a collection of essays that examines political action and practice in the past through studies and analyses of material culture from the perspective of anthropological archaeology. Contributors to this volume explore a variety of multi-scalar relationships between past peoples, places, objects and environments. At stake in this volume is what it is that constitutes politics, its social and cultural location, fields of analysis, its materiality and sociology and especially its position and possibilities as a conceptual and analytical category in archaeological investigations of past socio-cultural worlds. Our primary goals are twofold: the problematization and re-conceptualization of politics from its understanding as a reified essence or structure of political forms (e.g., a State) to a fluid, dynamic and culturally inflected set of practices; and, second, to consider politics' entanglement with the materiality of socio-cultural worlds at multiple-...
Making megaliths and constituting collectives
Settlement, Socio-environmental Practice and the Long Durée of Landscape Production in South India: A Regional View from Maski, Raichur District, Karnataka
On the cusp of social change: Iron working and cattle keeping at Bukkasagara at the onset of the south Indian Iron Age in northern Karnataka
Archaeological Research in Asia, 2019
Abstract The prehistoric settlement of Bukkasagara was occupied during the late second millennium... more Abstract The prehistoric settlement of Bukkasagara was occupied during the late second millennium BCE, during a period of significant social and economic change in what is today the northern part of the South Indian state of Karnataka. The settlement is unique for the contemporaneous practice of both the region's earliest radiometrically-dated iron production and its latest dated evidence for ashmounding, a socio-ritual practice involving the construction of mounds of burned and vitrified cattle dung dating back hundreds of years to the middle of the South Indian Neolithic period (ca. 2200 BCE). I investigate the settlement at Bukkasagara in light of recent studies of the Late Neolithic period (1800–1400 BCE) and the Neolithic-Iron Age transitional period (1400–1200 BCE and suggest that both the development of iron production in northern Karnataka and the termination of ashmound ritual in late second millennium BCE correspond with an escalation in developing social distinctions that were rooted in longstanding, localized social, economic and ritual practices. These localized socio-economic and ritual practices included agro-pastoralism, feasting, commemoration and memorialization and crafting, and were together the means through which nascent Neolithic social distinctions developed, and gradually assembled a new Iron Age political landscape.
On the Matter of Resources and Techno-Politics: The Case of Water and Iron in the South Indian Iron Age
American Anthropologist, 2018
Water management and iron production were two socio-technical practices deeply entrained with the... more Water management and iron production were two socio-technical practices deeply entrained with the politics of emerging social distinctions in northern Karnataka during the South Indian Iron Age (1200–300 BCE). In this article, we approach resources by building a theoretical convergence between " resource materialities " and " techno-politics, " which allows us to assess the historically specific constitution of certain materials as culturally valued resources while maintaining analytical attention on how assemblages of technical practices and active material properties shape social conditions. By differentially anticipating and responding to the social and material distributions of a range of dynamic matter (for example, granitic rock, iron ores, bloom, and metal, water, soils, and vegetation), Iron Age peoples transformed substances into resources and simultaneously produced a historically unique political sociology of resource relations. Our approach dissolves the processual distinction between natural resource and cultural product and directs attention to how substances become resources through ongoing historical articulations of humans and nonhumans in contexts oriented by cultural values. Contrasting the material properties and distributions of iron and water resource assemblages allows us to more fully understand the distinctiveness of different forms of techno-politics and resource relations within the same cultural and historical context. [resource materialities, techno-politics, resource assemblage, entrainment, South Indian Iron Age]
Early ironworking in Iron Age South India: New evidence for the social organization of production from northern Karnataka
Journal of Field Archaeology, 2014
Abstract Iron production was integral to political and ritual practices during the South Indian I... more Abstract Iron production was integral to political and ritual practices during the South Indian Iron Age (ca. 1200–300 b.c.), yet the investigation of the social relations of metals production during this period has been overshadowed by studies of iron consumption, particularly of iron objects in megalithic mortuary contexts. Recent archaeological research in the Tungabhadra River Corridor, Karnataka, has revealed iron production debris within and between settlements in more ephemeral occupational contexts, such as rockshelters. One notable discovery is the earliest ironworking facility in South India at Bukkasagara. The regional pattern suggests that iron production involved at least two classes of specialist producers—smelters and smiths—who exercised varying degrees of control over the practice and products of their craft. It also suggests that iron production was an important component in the construction and negotiation of Iron Age social differences, affiliations, and inequalities.
Prehistoric Mortuary Practices and the Constitution of Social Relationships: Implications of the First Radiocarbon Dates from Maski on the Occupational History of a South India “Type Site”
Radiocarbon, 2015
In 1954, B K Thapar excavated the multicomponent site of Maski (Raichur District, Karnataka) to e... more In 1954, B K Thapar excavated the multicomponent site of Maski (Raichur District, Karnataka) to establish an archaeological sequence for the southern Deccan region of India. Thapar identified four major periods of occupation, now known as the Neolithic (3000–1200 BC), Iron Age (1200–300 BC), Early Historic (300 BC to AD 500), and the Medieval periods (AD 500–1600). Renewed research at the site by the Maski Archaeological Research Project (F.1/8/2009-EE) has investigated the development of social differences and inequalities in south Indian prehistory. This article reports the first ever radiocarbon assays from habitation and megalithic burial contexts in the vicinity of Maski. Accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dates of charcoal sampled from exposed occupational strata on Maski's Durgada Gudda hill and subsequent Bayesian analyses indicate that the site was extensively occupied during the 14th century AD, corroborating interpretations of numismatic and inscriptional materials. ...
Beyond culture history at Maski: Land use, settlement and social differences in Neolithic through Medieval South India
Archaeological Research in Asia, 2015
Abstract The multicomponent site of Maski in northern Karnataka has long held a central position ... more 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 64 km 2 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 (3000–1200 BC), Iron Age (1200–300 BC), Early Historic (300 BC–AD 500), and Medieval (AD 500–1600) 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.
The politics of spatial renovation: Reconfiguring ritual places and practice in Iron Age and Early Historic South India
Journal of Social Archaeology, 2014
In South India, during the Iron Age and Early Historic Period, the space and meaning of certain r... more In South India, during the Iron Age and Early Historic Period, the space and meaning of certain ritual places were occupied and renovated by particular social groups in order to strategically meditate transitional logics of value and power. In northern Karnataka, during the Iron Age (1200–300 BC), megalithic monuments were built on earlier Neolithic ritual places (ashmounds), or materials from these places were removed and incorporated into megaliths constructed nearby, appropriating their space, material, and meaning, contributing to the construction of developing social distinctions. In the lower Krishna River Valley, during the Early Historic Period (300 BC–AD 300), Buddhist monastic communities constructed architectural complexes on, or proximal to, extant megalithic mortuary complexes, appropriating the space and meaning of these important ritual places. This paper explores how these strategic appropriations of socially significant places inscribed the landscape with novel form...
Current Science, 2019
This article summarizes the results of five field seasons of the Maski Archaeological Research Pr... more This article summarizes the results of five field seasons of the Maski Archaeological Research Project, an interdisciplinary project evaluating the relationships between social and environmental production throughout prehistoric and medieval periods in a 64 km 2 region centred around Maski, Raichur district, Karnataka, India. We report the outcomes of intensive pedestrian survey and initial results from excavations, salvage activities and radiocarbon assessments of occupational histories. The data attest to the social and political significance of prehistoric burial practices, and medieval period settlement practices and land-use activities, highlighting how archaeological materials both belie and complement epigraphic analyses of the region.
The Archaeology of Politics: The Materiality of Political Practice and Action in the Past
A political economy of space: Social organization and the production of an Iron Age settlement landscape in northern Karnataka
... Indexes of the surface Ceramic Assemblage at Rampuram 325 Figure 7.10a: Orifice Diameters fro... more ... Indexes of the surface Ceramic Assemblage at Rampuram 325 Figure 7.10a: Orifice Diameters from Jars in the Sheet Rock Terrace 337 ... Noah Thomas has also been a great friend and his intelligence, encouragement and humor over the years during New Mexican summers in ...
Antiquity
Human burials have been recovered from a wide variety of intra- and extramural settlement context... more Human burials have been recovered from a wide variety of intra- and extramural settlement contexts at Neolithic period sites (3000–1200 BC) in southern India, yet formal cemeteries remain virtually unknown from this period. Research at MARP-79 in the Raichur District of the south Indian state of Karnataka, near the type-site of Maski, documents a large Neolithic cemetery, now with the largest number of radiometrically dated burials of any archaeological site in southern India. The cemetery demonstrates considerable, previously undocumented variation in mortuary ritual, involving new materials, technologies and burial practices, which challenge culture-historical models, pointing instead towards long-term incremental developments that alter how we understand the emergence of Neolithic social differences.
The politics and historicity of megalithic places in early South India
Journal of Social Archaeology
This paper considers the intersections of memorialization practices and politics throughout a per... more This paper considers the intersections of memorialization practices and politics throughout a period of emergent social differentiation during the Neolithic and Iron Age periods in the Deccan region of southern India. Rather than focus on how mortuary architecture and grave assemblages might correlate with the status, rank, or class of the deceased individuals—as has often been suggested—we place emphasis on how mortuary practices and the production of megalithic places contributed to the establishment and maintenance of social collectives among living communities. More specifically, we identify at least two modes of political practice associated with megalithic production in prehistoric South India: one related to the constitution of collectives of labor and shared consumption activities involved in the process of making monuments; and a second related to the material legacy of monuments in constituting cultural and historical places of social affiliation. In making these arguments...
Changing Cultural Landscapes of the Tungabhadra Valley, South India
University of Arizona Press eBooks, Sep 13, 2022
Ritual, settlement and land-use practices: Towards a social history of Neolithic though Medieval period Maski, southern India
Archaeological Research in Asia
Akira Shimada and Michael Willis, eds, <em>Amaravati: The Art of an Early Buddhist Monument... more Akira Shimada and Michael Willis, eds, <em>Amaravati: The Art of an Early Buddhist Monument in Context</em> (London: British Museum, 2016).
The Archaeology of Politics: The Materiality of Political Practice and Action in the Past
The Archaeology of Politics is a collection of essays that examines political action and practice... more The Archaeology of Politics is a collection of essays that examines political action and practice in the past through studies and analyses of material culture from the perspective of anthropological archaeology. Contributors to this volume explore a variety of multi-scalar relationships between past peoples, places, objects and environments. At stake in this volume is what it is that constitutes politics, its social and cultural location, fields of analysis, its materiality and sociology and especially its position and possibilities as a conceptual and analytical category in archaeological investigations of past socio-cultural worlds. Our primary goals are twofold: the problematization and re-conceptualization of politics from its understanding as a reified essence or structure of political forms (e.g., a State) to a fluid, dynamic and culturally inflected set of practices; and, second, to consider politics' entanglement with the materiality of socio-cultural worlds at multiple-...
Making megaliths and constituting collectives
Settlement, Socio-environmental Practice and the Long Durée of Landscape Production in South India: A Regional View from Maski, Raichur District, Karnataka
On the cusp of social change: Iron working and cattle keeping at Bukkasagara at the onset of the south Indian Iron Age in northern Karnataka
Archaeological Research in Asia, 2019
Abstract The prehistoric settlement of Bukkasagara was occupied during the late second millennium... more Abstract The prehistoric settlement of Bukkasagara was occupied during the late second millennium BCE, during a period of significant social and economic change in what is today the northern part of the South Indian state of Karnataka. The settlement is unique for the contemporaneous practice of both the region's earliest radiometrically-dated iron production and its latest dated evidence for ashmounding, a socio-ritual practice involving the construction of mounds of burned and vitrified cattle dung dating back hundreds of years to the middle of the South Indian Neolithic period (ca. 2200 BCE). I investigate the settlement at Bukkasagara in light of recent studies of the Late Neolithic period (1800–1400 BCE) and the Neolithic-Iron Age transitional period (1400–1200 BCE and suggest that both the development of iron production in northern Karnataka and the termination of ashmound ritual in late second millennium BCE correspond with an escalation in developing social distinctions that were rooted in longstanding, localized social, economic and ritual practices. These localized socio-economic and ritual practices included agro-pastoralism, feasting, commemoration and memorialization and crafting, and were together the means through which nascent Neolithic social distinctions developed, and gradually assembled a new Iron Age political landscape.
On the Matter of Resources and Techno-Politics: The Case of Water and Iron in the South Indian Iron Age
American Anthropologist, 2018
Water management and iron production were two socio-technical practices deeply entrained with the... more Water management and iron production were two socio-technical practices deeply entrained with the politics of emerging social distinctions in northern Karnataka during the South Indian Iron Age (1200–300 BCE). In this article, we approach resources by building a theoretical convergence between " resource materialities " and " techno-politics, " which allows us to assess the historically specific constitution of certain materials as culturally valued resources while maintaining analytical attention on how assemblages of technical practices and active material properties shape social conditions. By differentially anticipating and responding to the social and material distributions of a range of dynamic matter (for example, granitic rock, iron ores, bloom, and metal, water, soils, and vegetation), Iron Age peoples transformed substances into resources and simultaneously produced a historically unique political sociology of resource relations. Our approach dissolves the processual distinction between natural resource and cultural product and directs attention to how substances become resources through ongoing historical articulations of humans and nonhumans in contexts oriented by cultural values. Contrasting the material properties and distributions of iron and water resource assemblages allows us to more fully understand the distinctiveness of different forms of techno-politics and resource relations within the same cultural and historical context. [resource materialities, techno-politics, resource assemblage, entrainment, South Indian Iron Age]
Early ironworking in Iron Age South India: New evidence for the social organization of production from northern Karnataka
Journal of Field Archaeology, 2014
Abstract Iron production was integral to political and ritual practices during the South Indian I... more Abstract Iron production was integral to political and ritual practices during the South Indian Iron Age (ca. 1200–300 b.c.), yet the investigation of the social relations of metals production during this period has been overshadowed by studies of iron consumption, particularly of iron objects in megalithic mortuary contexts. Recent archaeological research in the Tungabhadra River Corridor, Karnataka, has revealed iron production debris within and between settlements in more ephemeral occupational contexts, such as rockshelters. One notable discovery is the earliest ironworking facility in South India at Bukkasagara. The regional pattern suggests that iron production involved at least two classes of specialist producers—smelters and smiths—who exercised varying degrees of control over the practice and products of their craft. It also suggests that iron production was an important component in the construction and negotiation of Iron Age social differences, affiliations, and inequalities.
Prehistoric Mortuary Practices and the Constitution of Social Relationships: Implications of the First Radiocarbon Dates from Maski on the Occupational History of a South India “Type Site”
Radiocarbon, 2015
In 1954, B K Thapar excavated the multicomponent site of Maski (Raichur District, Karnataka) to e... more In 1954, B K Thapar excavated the multicomponent site of Maski (Raichur District, Karnataka) to establish an archaeological sequence for the southern Deccan region of India. Thapar identified four major periods of occupation, now known as the Neolithic (3000–1200 BC), Iron Age (1200–300 BC), Early Historic (300 BC to AD 500), and the Medieval periods (AD 500–1600). Renewed research at the site by the Maski Archaeological Research Project (F.1/8/2009-EE) has investigated the development of social differences and inequalities in south Indian prehistory. This article reports the first ever radiocarbon assays from habitation and megalithic burial contexts in the vicinity of Maski. Accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dates of charcoal sampled from exposed occupational strata on Maski's Durgada Gudda hill and subsequent Bayesian analyses indicate that the site was extensively occupied during the 14th century AD, corroborating interpretations of numismatic and inscriptional materials. ...
Beyond culture history at Maski: Land use, settlement and social differences in Neolithic through Medieval South India
Archaeological Research in Asia, 2015
Abstract The multicomponent site of Maski in northern Karnataka has long held a central position ... more 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 64 km 2 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 (3000–1200 BC), Iron Age (1200–300 BC), Early Historic (300 BC–AD 500), and Medieval (AD 500–1600) 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.
The politics of spatial renovation: Reconfiguring ritual places and practice in Iron Age and Early Historic South India
Journal of Social Archaeology, 2014
In South India, during the Iron Age and Early Historic Period, the space and meaning of certain r... more In South India, during the Iron Age and Early Historic Period, the space and meaning of certain ritual places were occupied and renovated by particular social groups in order to strategically meditate transitional logics of value and power. In northern Karnataka, during the Iron Age (1200–300 BC), megalithic monuments were built on earlier Neolithic ritual places (ashmounds), or materials from these places were removed and incorporated into megaliths constructed nearby, appropriating their space, material, and meaning, contributing to the construction of developing social distinctions. In the lower Krishna River Valley, during the Early Historic Period (300 BC–AD 300), Buddhist monastic communities constructed architectural complexes on, or proximal to, extant megalithic mortuary complexes, appropriating the space and meaning of these important ritual places. This paper explores how these strategic appropriations of socially significant places inscribed the landscape with novel form...
Current Science, 2019
This article summarizes the results of five field seasons of the Maski Archaeological Research Pr... more This article summarizes the results of five field seasons of the Maski Archaeological Research Project, an interdisciplinary project evaluating the relationships between social and environmental production throughout prehistoric and medieval periods in a 64 km 2 region centred around Maski, Raichur district, Karnataka, India. We report the outcomes of intensive pedestrian survey and initial results from excavations, salvage activities and radiocarbon assessments of occupational histories. The data attest to the social and political significance of prehistoric burial practices, and medieval period settlement practices and land-use activities, highlighting how archaeological materials both belie and complement epigraphic analyses of the region.
This article summarizes the results of five field seasons of the Maski Archaeological Research Pr... more This article summarizes the results of five field seasons of the Maski Archaeological Research Project, an interdisciplinary project evaluating the relationships between social and environmental production throughout prehistoric and medieval periods in a 64 km 2 region centred around Maski, Raichur district, Karnataka, India. We report the outcomes of intensive pedestrian survey and initial results from excavations, salvage activities and radiocarbon assessments of occupational histories. The data attest to the social and political significance of prehistoric burial practices, and medieval period settlement practices and land-use activities, highlighting how archaeological materials both belie and complement epigraphic analyses of the region.
Current Science, 2019
This article summarizes the results of five field seasons of the Maski Archaeological Research Pr... more This article summarizes the results of five field seasons of the Maski Archaeological Research Project, an interdisciplinary project evaluating the relationships between social and environmental production throughout prehistoric and medieval periods in a 64 km 2 region centred around Maski, Raichur district, Karnataka, India. We report the outcomes of intensive pedestrian survey and initial results from excavations, salvage activities and radiocarbon assessments of occupational histories. The data attest to the social and political significance of prehistoric burial practices, and medieval period settlement practices and land-use activities, highlighting how archaeological materials both belie and complement epigraphic analyses of the region.
Archaeological Research in Asia, 2019
American Anthropologist, 2018
Water management and iron production were two socio-technical practices deeply entrained with the... more Water management and iron production were two socio-technical practices deeply entrained with the politics of emerging social distinctions in northern Karnataka during the South Indian Iron Age (1200-300 BCE).
Recasting the Foundations: New Approaches to Regional Understandings of South Asian Archaeology and the Problem of Culture History
Journal of anthropological archaeology, Jan 1, 2004
During the South Indian Neolithic period (3000-1200 BC), the agro-pastoral inhabitants of the Sou... more During the South Indian Neolithic period (3000-1200 BC), the agro-pastoral inhabitants of the South Deccan/North Dharwar region constructed large mounded features by heaping and burning accumulations of cattle dung. These Ôash-moundÕ features were comprised of a myriad of variegated strata of ash, vitrified dung, and other culturally modified sediments, many of which reached monumental proportions. Ashmounds have been the subject of considerable debate since coming to the attention of scholars in the early 19th century. Current debate has centered largely on the function and spatial context of these features in relation to Neolithic settlement. This article examines the South Indian ashmounds as monumental forms of architecture and the loci of ritual and ceremonial activity within the context of Neolithic agro-pastoral landscape production. By situating ashmound construction within the social rhythm of cattle pastoralism and carefully examining the emplotment, depositional histories, and post-Neolithic afterlives of these unique features this paper argues that social practices likely originating in quotidian activities were gradually transformed into regular, public ceremonial activities producing monumental forms, relating and reinforcing socio-symbolically charged information.
Asian Perspectives, Jan 1, 2007
This paper investigates the spatial organization of social relations in settlement contexts throu... more This paper investigates the spatial organization of social relations in settlement contexts through a quantitative and distributional analysis of surface ceramic attributes from Iron Age Period (1200-300 BC) archaeological sites in Southern India. The results discern variation in depositional contexts across each site, from which I infer a variety of basic settlement activity structures (e.g., site maintenance, trash disposal, residence, animal husbandry, metallurgy, ritual). I use these results, together with further analyses of artifact and feature distributions, to infer a basic suite of places, place-making practices and some of the social relations and organizational structures that produced these historically unique Iron Age settlement landscapes.
Site Structure and Settlement Organization at Iron Age Bukkasagara and Rampuram: Results from Surface Collections and Documentation
The Maski Archaeological Research Project (MARP): Investigating the Long Term Dynamics of Settlement, Politics and Environmental History in Ancient South India
Antiquity, 2013
Excavation of Early Historic Deposits, Gilund 1999-2000
Gilund Excavations, 2014
In South India, during the Iron Age and Early Historic Period, the space and meaning of certain r... more In South India, during the Iron Age and Early Historic Period, the space and meaning of certain ritual places were occupied and renovated by particular social groups in order to strategically meditate transitional logics of value and power. In northern Karnataka, during the Iron Age (1200-300 BC), megalithic monuments were built on earlier Neolithic ritual places (ashmounds), or materials from these places were removed and incorporated into megaliths constructed nearby, appropriating their space, material, and meaning, contributing to the construction of developing social distinctions. In the lower Krishna River Valley, during the Early Historic Period (300 BC-AD 300), Buddhist monastic communities constructed architectural complexes on, or proximal to, extant megalithic mortuary complexes, appropriating the space and meaning of these important ritual places. This paper explores how these strategic appropriations of socially significant places inscribed the landscape with novel forms of politically salient ritual architecture reordering the experience and perception of socio-ritual practice and place.
Journal of Field Archaeology, 2014
Iron production was integral to political and ritual practices during the South Indian Iron Age (... more Iron production was integral to political and ritual practices during the South Indian Iron Age (ca. 1200-300 B.C.), yet the investigation of the social relations of metals production during this period has been overshadowed by studies of iron consumption, particularly of iron objects in megalithic mortuary contexts. Recent archaeological research in the Tungabhadra River Corridor, Karnataka, has revealed iron production debris within and between settlements in more ephemeral occupational contexts, such as rockshelters. One notable discovery is the earliest ironworking facility in South India at Bukkasagara. The regional pattern suggests that iron production involved at least two classes of specialist producerssmelters and smiths-who exercised varying degrees of control over the practice and products of their craft. It also suggests that iron production was an important component in the construction and negotiation of Iron Age social differences, affiliations, and inequalities.
Chapter 1 in Amaravati: the Art of an Early Buddhist Monument in Context, edited by M Willis and ... more Chapter 1 in Amaravati: the Art of an Early Buddhist Monument in Context, edited by M Willis and A. Shimada, pp. 12-22. British Museum Press, London. 2016
The Archaeology of Knowledge Traditions of the Indian Ocean World, edited by Himanshu Prabha Ray, 2020