Excavation at Adichanallur, Sivagalai begins

Aarchaeologists attached to Sivagalai are excavating a small mound - Vellathiradu in Sivagalai, another suspected human settlement site.
An urn identified at Adichanallur archaeological site | EXPRESS
An urn identified at Adichanallur archaeological site | EXPRESS

THOOTHUKUDI: In search of human settlements, State Archaeological department has started excavation at Adichanallur and Sivagalai in the district. However, the officials are yet to find remnants of houses in both the sites.

Adichanallur excavation director J Baskar said that they are excavating a private land suspected to be a pre-historic human settlement. Many antiquities, kitchen utilities, metal weapons and potsherds that throw light into the presence of a human settlement have been identified. "However, we have not yet identified a house structure to confirm it as a site of human settlement," he said.

Meanwhile, archaeologists attached to Sivagalai are excavating a small mound - Vellathiradu in Sivagalai, another suspected human settlement site. "They have, so far, dug three trenches at Vellathiradu mound and have found ancient antiquities, bonesand potsherds," said sources.

Over 20 urns of various sizes and hundreds of ancient materials, kitchen utensils, small clay dishes, bangles, bones and large pots have been unearthed in both of the archeological sites.

A Manickam, a history teacher who was instrumental in bringing to fore the Sivagalai archaeological sites, said that Chekkadi, Tharusukulam, Valappanpillai Thiradu, Sasthakoil Medu, Marakapamedu and Sivagalai Melakulam areas around Sivagalai are probable human settlement sites since there are ample evidences.

Muthalankurichi Kamarasu, a Tamil writer, said that the pending fencing project around Adichanallur archaeological site belongs to the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). "Even though, Tamil Nadu government had sought permission to excavate the 114-acre archaeological site belonging to Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), the ongoing excavations are being carried out in government's porambokke lands and private lands in Adichanallur that are out of the archeological site in State," he said.

The writer said that only a few cents of land in the 114-acre archaeological site was excavated in 2004-2006 by the then Superintending Archaeologist T Sathyamurthy and presently, they are searching for human settlements out of the earmarked archaeological site. It was on the writer's litigation that the Madurai Bench of Madras High Court found that the Adichanallur site belonged to 905 BC.

When asked, the archaeologists did not comment on this.

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