MEGALITHIC BUILDERS OF SOUTH INDIA: Archaeo-Anthropoligical Investigations on Human Skeletal Remains from Kodumanal

The report on the Kodumanal human skeletal series is important in many ways. The site of Kodumanal is one of the best excavated, best attended and best reported Early Historic-Megalithic sites of the Indian peninsular region. The report deviates from the conventional anthropological design, and follows bio-cultural approach which provides information on many important facets of this bygone population. For the first time in Indian archaeology the human remains recovered from the excavation are not looked as isolated pieces of evidence for mere description of bodily features, but anthropologists and the excavator are joining hands while interpreting the biological features in terms of literary, epigraphical and archaeological data.