Time is operating out for the dolmens ofKodaikanalcourting again to five,000 years

In the early 1910s, the highway to Kodaikanal was a piece in progress. Workers had been widening the bridle path fashioned in 1878 to achieve the star-shaped lake fashioned by the then Collector of Madurai, Sir Vere Henry Levinge, in 1863. For the British, the hills and their salubrious local weather provided a respite from the wilting warmth of the plains. The employees had been toiling to finish a motorable highway envisaged by Major G.C. Law. But for the earliest recorder of the dolmens of Kodaikanal, Father A. Anglade, it was a interval of tension and suspense. The highway was accomplished in 1914 and opened by 1916. But even earlier than the highway was laid, utilizing the bridle path, a mud highway utilized by the Paliyar tribes, Jesuit clergymen had gone up the hills to discovered the Sacred Heart College at Shembaganur in 1895.

The first survey

This seminary, a monastic place for meditation and rejuvenation of the spirit, additionally allowed Jesuit clergymen to indulge of their ardour for biology and historical past. It was right here — the place the one sounds had been the chirping of birds, the gentle whisper of rain, or, on lengthy nights, the loud buzz of cicadas carried by a cool breeze — that Reverend A. Anglade S.J. and Reverend L. V. Newton S.J. wrote The Dolmens of the Pulney Hills, a piece later compiled within the 1928 version of Memoirs of the Archaeological Survey of India.

The work was seen as a urgent want by the Fathers. As it was mentioned, “The destruction nonetheless goes on close to the villages and alongside the roads. The finest group of the dolmens of Machur close to the Forest Bungalow at a pointy flip of the ghat highway, and a bit of past the 18th milestone, was enormously broken by the road-makers some years in the past and use is being product of what stays to restore partitions and culverts every time there may be want, which is fairly typically.”

Along with the Paliyar males, Father Anglade, additionally a widely known botanist, and Father Newton might have traversed the dips and hollows of the hills, recording the dolmens and the wealthy wildlife of this distinctive area. Struck by the quite a few dolmens scattered in these crevices and a sample, they began the primary survey of the dolmens within the hills.

The dolmens, that are megalithic buildings, may very well be dated to past 5,000 years. Father Anglade writes, “From the current website and place of the dolmens and from the tough supplies seen shut by…it’s comparatively simple to type an concept of the method of building. Neither on the stones used for the wall nor on the slabs of the chambers is there any mark of chopping or dressing with any instrument.”

He imagines that possibly the chief of the tribe selected a specific spot to construct the dolmens and the variety of chambers was decided in accordance with the variety of slabs obtainable within the speedy neighborhood with the scale relying on the precise dimensions of the slabs. The builders would have been solely depending on the pure quarries close by. As a end result, in Kodaikanal, a lot of the dolmens are invariably erected on rocky ridges or slopes or instantly beneath a big expanse of rock. Even immediately, at among the websites, one can see slabs of assorted dimensions mendacity indifferent from the floor of the rock owing to the vagaries of nature.

Another attention-grabbing remark made by these early archaeologists was that the massive cap-stone that was positioned on high of the 4 vertical slabs had a delicate slope. This led rainwater to move away from the dolmens. The dolmens additionally had a gap on the decrease finish to stop rainwater from accumulating within the chambers.

A analysis paper written by R. N. Kumaran and M. Saranya, ‘(Pre) Iron Age Burials of Thandikudi, Tamil Nadu’, in 2015 says Thandikudi was effectively related by main conventional commerce routes. “One of the commerce routes that connects Musiri on the West Coast and Madurai within the hinterland passes by Pollachi, Palani, Dindgul, and Madurai. The villages — Palamalai, Perumalmalai, Machhur, Pannaikadu, Thandikudi and Kadavumalai — had been on this commerce route,” the paper says. And the early data of dolmens, cists, urns, and cairn-circles are discovered on this route. This showcases the density of the inhabitants that had resided in these hills so many centuries earlier than the early Pandya interval when the commerce routes had been established.

In one other work, Archaeological Investigations at Thandikudi, by Okay. Rajan, N. Athiyaman, VP Yatees Kumar, and M. Saranya in 2008, it’s mentioned the terrain might have performed an awesome function for the early inhabitants of the area. “Nearly 90% of the archaeological websites of this area fall inside the vary of 4000-5000 toes above imply sea degree. This altitude gives a congenial atmosphere for the expansion of forest merchandise like pepper and cardamom,” the article says. For the forest-gatherers of the bygone days, this may occasionally have been one of many causes to inhabit tracts on this altitude.

Occupation from pre-Iron Age

In 2004, the primary part of excavation was carried out within the burial website that occupies about 40 hectares on the suitable financial institution of the Marudanadhi. It extends alongside the suitable financial institution, ranging from the Forest Bungalow on the west to Bommakadu on the east. From artefacts corresponding to black and pink ware and beads of carnelian which were excavated from a few of these megalithic buildings, the archaeologists infer that the pre-Iron Age graves might have been positioned on the highest level of the burial complicated that might have been simply reverse the habitation mound on the opposite financial institution. And because the burial complicated grew through the years, the graves moved progressively away from the habitation. The explorations by the Jesuit Fathers and the next excavations carried out within the pepper and cardamom plantations within the decrease Palani hills reveal steady occupation from the pre-Iron Age to the current day.

At Pethuparai close to Perumal Malai, one can see on a gently sloping ridge, dolmens which were fenced by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). At Thandikudi, the dolmens are vanishing, and a few have slowly disappeared beneath thick vegetation. It might have been a premonition of Father Anglade when he writes in his work, “Out of the three teams close to Neutral Saddle, on the foot of Perumal Malai, the smallest one was utterly destroyed…and one other enormously broken in May 1925. If such destruction can happen in our days and beneath our eyes, it wants no particular present of prophecy to foresee that earlier than lengthy not a single stone alongside the general public highway and inside the attain of contractors and their coolies will escape their ravages.”

Lobbo Christian, who works at Sacred Heart College digitising the quite a few outdated data, fears that the prophecy might come true as solely lower than 50% of the dolmens, recorded by the Jesuit Fathers, may be seen precariously standing in these hills, revealing the essential function this area performed within the historic historical past of Tamil Nadu.