NEWS

Karnataka tourism department to set up digital museum at Sanganakallu

SANGANAKALLU

• Archaeological site from the Neolithic period
• Approximately 8 km from Bellary in eastern Karnataka
• Group of hills south of a horseshoe shaped valley, with Kupgal to the north
• One of the earliest settlements in South India, spread over 1,000 acres
• There is a layer of red-brown fossilized soil spread over Sanganakallu and Kupgal that can be dated back to 9000 BC
• Considered to be a neolithic factory site due to the surface excavation revealing large numbers of pottery, stone axes, and other stone tools
• First majorly excavated in 1946, by Bendapudi Subbarao, on Sannarasamma hill
• Subbarao divided their culture into 3 phases
  • Pre-Mesolithic, the phase when Sanganakallu was first settled, had little pottery, and the people made crude microliths.
  • Mesolithic, the phase when pottery was handmade and stone axes were mass produced.
  • Neolithic, the phase when pottery and tools became more sophisticated
• Sanganakallu was excavated again in 1964