This study aims at using and understanding man-land relationships in order to better comprehend the megalithic burials of Tamil Nadu.

This book presents a paradigm shift in the long-term study of South India’s deep history. It refuses the disciplinary constraints of history and prehistory and interrogates the archaeological and textual records of the Deccan to disrupt its conventional archaeological periodizations, which have tended to reify and dehistoricize social and cultural differences. This book draws on over 20 years of original archaeological research from the southern Deccan region of India to critically reappraise the historiography that has framed its deep history. It fundamentally questions conventional archaeological paradigms, rooted in early colonial scholarship, which have structured interpretations of deep time with curiously ahistorical narratives of the past. This volume offers a more nuanced assessment of historical changes across a diversity of cultural, social, and political practices through the novel application of theoretical framings to archaeological and historical data, including political ecology, techno-politics, resource materialities, and landscape production. This book will interest an interdisciplinary audience of graduate and undergraduate students and professional academics, primarily in the fields of archaeology, history, and South Asian studies. Its theoretical interventions will also be of interest to those invested in the anthropology and the archaeology of politics, chronology, historicity, historiography, materiality and landscapes.

Contributed articles.

Description of Hindu monuments in Māmallapuram, India.

Māmallapuram, also called Mahabalipuram, a historic town in Tamil Nadu, India.

This is a book that is full of surprises! Yuvan’s talents as a naturalist, storyteller and wise young philosopher will certainly delight you whether you are a nature buff or not. The acrobatics and apparent eccentricities of the Indian Roller, the little Barbet that watches people around with endless curiosity from the hollow of a tree, and many other beings that share the world with us are brought alive in a way that gives us a feeling of intimate connectedness with them. As much as human characters in a gripping novel would. The paddy field for Yuvan in his school days was a scene of intense drama to be keenly observed - the innumerable birds, insects, snakes and crustaceans and how they interact in various situations and seasons, partaking of the farming activities of humans. The context for his thoughts and observations in many of his essays has been his school, Pathashaala. One cannot help but appreciate the school that gave space to the flowering of this self-taught naturalist. Any teacher taking children on Nature walks or struggling to make biology classes interesting can use his essays to bring in a spark of excitement and involvement to children today who are so alienated from Nature. But this is also a book for people of all ages that will surely make you look at spiders, caterpillars and many of Nature's creations with new eyes and a gladdened heart. -Seetha Ananthasivan Trustee and Founder, Bhoomi College and Prakriya Green-Wisdom School

A volume of essays on communicating archaeology by every imaginable means provides an excellent tribute to the work of Bill Putnam - always a communicator. Learning by doing (Philip Rahtz), field archaeology in the 70s and 80s (John Hinchliffe), ignore good communication at your peril (Andrew Lawson), the IFA: what it means to be a member of a professional body (Timothy Darvill), talking to ourselves (Ellen McAdam), commissioning knowledge or making archaeology for books (Peter Kemmis Betty), arcane to ARC: the York experience (Andrew Jones), the National Curriculum (Mike Corbishley), past experience: the view from teacher education (Tim Copeland), child's play: archaeology out of school (Kate Pretty), university archaeology: ivory tower or white elephant? (Kevin Andrews) , liberal adult education in the second half of the twentieth century (Trevor Rowley), the local societies (John Manley) , archaeology in museums (Roger Peers).