Revision summary
Indian megaliths are stone graves and memorials, not one race. Peninsular sites such as Junapani and Brahmagiri are Iron Age funerary. North-East Khasi and Naga stones are living status and kinship monuments. Form can look similar while date and function differ. The single megalithic-race story does not survive the evidence.
Model answer
Introduction
Megalithic tradition in India is a family of stone-using burial and memorial practices, not one race or one century. North-East India matters because living communities still raise stones, while the peninsula mostly left archaeological graves.
Body
Peninsular archaeological megaliths
- South and central Indian megaliths are largely Iron Age graves: cairns, cists, dolmens, and urns with iron, Black-and-Red ware, and horse remains.
- R. E. M. Wheeler at Brahmagiri set a sequence. Junapani near Nagpur is a dense stone-circle cemetery of the Vidarbha Iron Age.
- H. D. Sankalia and later Deccan teams showed regional variety. One pottery does not mean one people.
North-East living megaliths
- Khasi and Jaintia of Meghalaya raise menhirs and table-stones as memorials of status, alliance, and the dead, described by colonial ethnographers and later anthropologists.
- Naga groups use stone seats, alignments, and feast-of-merit memorials. These are public kinship monuments, not always closed Iron Age tombs.
- Continuity of form does not prove that a Khasi stone is the same culture as a Junapani circle. Function, date, and society differ.
Critical appraisal
- Older writers tied megaliths to a single megalithic race. Skeletal and ceramic diversity kills that story.
- North-East stones are part of living political ritual. Peninsular megaliths are mostly funerary archaeology.
- Christianity, land law, and roads have changed Khasi and Naga stone-raising, so the living file is historical, not timeless.
- The useful appraisal is comparative: iron-using grave cultures in the south and central hills, and memorial stone politics in the North-East.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD M[Megalithic India] --> P[Peninsula Iron Age graves] M --> N[NE living memorials] P --> J[Junapani Brahmagiri] N --> K[Khasi Naga stones]
Conclusion
India’s megaliths are plural. Junapani-type graves are Iron Age archaeology. Khasi and Naga stones are living memorial politics. A single megalithic culture is a teaching error.
Quick related
Students also ask
-
Assess the contributions of S. C. Dube in Indian village studies
Next question in the 2022 paper (Q3). View answer →
-
Are North-East megaliths Iron Age tombs?
Usually no. Many are recent or standing memorials. Archaeology and ethnography must not be collapsed.
-
Did one people bring megaliths to India?
No. Dates, pots, and bones vary. Diffusion of a fashion is possible; a single race is not proven.
PYQ trend
When UPSC asked this
Related PYQs from other years, newest first. Open a question to read it.
-
2025 · Q2(a) · Anthropology GS 2 · 20 marks
Discuss the palaeoanthropological significance of Siwaliks of India giving its subdivisions, fossil primate fauna and major primate fossil localities -
2025 · Q5(b) · Anthropology GS 2 · 10 marks
Taxonomic status of Ramapithecus in the light of Ramapithecus-Sivapithecus controversy. -
2023 · Q5(b) · Anthropology GS 2 · 10 marks
Ramapithecus-Sivapithecus debate -
2022 · Q2(b) · Anthropology GS 2 · 15 marks
What are the arguments for excluding Narmada Man from Homo erectus category? -
2021 · Q2(c) · Anthropology GS 2 · 15 marks
Discuss the morphological features and phylogenetic Position of Ramapithecus -
2021 · Q8(c) · Anthropology GS 2 · 15 marks
Identify the causes of tribal unrest with special reference to North-East India -
2016 · Q2(b) · Anthropology GS 2 · 15 marks
Delineate the salient characteristics of 'Narmada Man' and examine its phylogenetic significance
More from this paper
Q1(a) · UPSC Mains 2022 · Anthropology GS 2 · 10 marks
Pit-dwellers of Kashmir
Evolution of the Indian Culture and Civilization
Pit-dwellers of Kashmir lived in sunken Neolithic floors at Burzahom, Gufkral, and Kanispur. Houses later rose on filled pits as mud-and-rubble rectangles. Bone tools, cereals, and dog burials mark mixed subsistence. Sankalia set the valley Neolithic beside other Indian food-producing cultures. The tradition is highland and local, not an Indus copy.
Q1(b) · UPSC Mains 2022 · Anthropology GS 2 · 10 marks
Varna and Buddhism
Evolution of the Indian Culture and Civilization
Varna is the four-fold Brahmanical rank by birth. Buddhism treated it as a social label, not a bar to nirvana. The sangha was open by conduct, as Ashokan dhamma also implied. Patronage still carried rank into Buddhist society. Ambedkar used that critique in the 1956 conversion.
Q1(c) · UPSC Mains 2022 · Anthropology GS 2 · 10 marks
Dharma versus Religion
Evolution of the Indian Culture and Civilization
Dharma means duty and order tied to role and group. Religion names a congregational faith with creed and conversion. Kane and Dumont keep dharma as law and hierarchy, not a church. Article 25 forces Indian practice into the legal word religion. Colonial translation flattened duty, sect, and civil law into one noun.
Toppers' copies
Toppers' copies for this question will be uploaded soon.