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 ‘ashmound’ 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.
Fig. 5. Kudatini Ashmound (photo courtesy of Carla Sinopoli). Ashmound features also contrast with their natural background. In many recorded instances ashmounds and their surrounding settlements are situated in locally prominent points on the landscape. These include on the top of promontories or natural platforms, at the foot of granite inselburgs or clusters of small rocky outcrops, or in small valley passes between hills. The massive ash- mound at Kudatini is one case of the latter, in which the feature stands prominently in the middle of a small pass between two hills.