Published on: April 13, 2022

MEGALITHS OF ASSAM

MEGALITHS OF ASSAM

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Recently, Archaeologists have identified 65 large sandstone jars (Megaliths) believed to be used for ritual burials across four sites in Hasao district, Assam

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WHAT ARE FOUND

  • Some jars are tall and cylindrical, while others are partly or fully buried in the ground.
  • Some of them spanned up to three metres high and two metres wide. Some of the jars feature decorative carvings, while others are plain.

BACKGROUND

  • The jars of Assam were first sighted in 1929 by British civil servants James Philip Mills and John Henry Hutton, who recorded their presence in six sites in Dima Hasao: Derebore (now Hojai Dobongling), Kobak, Kartong, Molongpa (now Melange Puram), Ndunglo and Bolasan (now Nuchubunglo).
  • Two sites were discovered in 2016. In 2020, four more sites were discovered by the History and Archaeology Department at North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong, Meghalaya.
  • At one site, Nuchubunglo, as many as 546 jars were found which was the largest such site in the world.

SIGNIFICANCE

  • Links could be drawn with the stone jars found in Laos and Indonesia.
  • No reported parallel anywhere else in India, apart from the northeast – this points to the fact that once upon a time a group of people having similar kind of cultural practice occupied the same geography between Laos and Northeast India
  • Dating done at the Laos site suggests that jars were positioned at the sites as early as the late second millennium BC