Recently, archaeological studies at which one among the following revealed that by 1200 BCE there was a flourishing agrarian civilization and the cultivation of rice was well-established at this place?
- (a)Raichur Doab
- (b)Krishna Delta
- (c)Vicinity of Vamsadhara river
- (d)Vicinity of Thamirabarani river
Correct — D, Vicinity of Thamirabarani river. The excavation is at Sivakalai, in Thoothukudi district of Tamil Nadu, in the valley of the Thamirabarani — the river the Tamil tradition calls Porunai. A paddy sample recovered there was carbon-dated to about 1155 BCE, and on 10 September 2021 the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu announced in the Assembly that the Porunai civilisation on the banks of the river was some 3,200 years old, citing a report from a laboratory in Miami. That is the finding the stem is pointing at: rice being grown, and grown as part of settled agrarian life, in the far south by the twelfth century BCE. The date pushes established agriculture in Tamil Nadu back considerably earlier than the classical Sangam period, which is why the announcement carried the weight it did.
- (a)Raichur Doab — The Raichur doab, between the Krishna and the Tungabhadra, is genuinely important in South Indian archaeology — the southern Neolithic ash mounds and later Iron Age sites are found there — but the 1200 BCE rice finding announced in 2021 belongs to the Thamirabarani valley.
- (b)Krishna Delta — The Krishna delta is a major rice-growing region today and has its own archaeological record, but it is not the site of this excavation or this dating result.
- (c)Vicinity of Vamsadhara river — The Vamsadhara flows through southern Odisha and northern Andhra Pradesh. It has no part in the Tamil Nadu State Department of Archaeology's Porunai river project, which is what produced this result.
The Thamirabarani rises in the Pothigai hills of the Western Ghats above Papanasam, runs about 128 kilometres through Tirunelveli and Thoothukudi districts and drains into the Gulf of Mannar. The valley holds a dense cluster of early sites, of which Adichanallur is the best known, and the Tamil Nadu State Department of Archaeology has excavated several of them as part of a project built around the river's classical name, Porunai. Sivakalai has yielded iron tools reported at very early dates and Tamil inscriptions dated to the seventh century BCE alongside the paddy sample, and the site was first brought to notice by a local history teacher before the State department took it up.
Archaeology questions in these papers are usually about placing a site with a river or a State, so the working method is to match the unfamiliar name to the region it belongs to. Three of the four options here are river or region names from outside Tamil Nadu, and the news in 2021 was unambiguously a Tamil Nadu story, which narrows it at once. The detail worth holding is the pairing Thamirabarani and Porunai — the same river under two names, one modern and one classical — because the announcement and the coverage both used the classical one. One honest caution about the numbers: the 1155 BCE date is the carbon date on the paddy sample, and the still earlier dates reported from the same site for iron tools have been debated; the rice result is the one this question rests on.
- Sivakalai lies in Thoothukudi district of Tamil Nadu, in the valley of the Thamirabarani, known classically as the Porunai.
- Paddy samples from the site were dated to approximately 1155 BCE.
- On 10 September 2021 the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister announced that the Porunai civilisation on the river's banks was about 3,200 years old.
- The Thamirabarani rises in the Pothigai hills, runs about 128 kilometres through Tirunelveli and Thoothukudi districts, and drains into the Gulf of Mannar.
- Adichanallur, in the same river valley, is the best-known early site of the region.
- Not recognising Porunai and Thamirabarani as the same river, which is how the news reports and the question can look like different subjects.
- Mixing this finding up with Keeladi on the Vaigai, the other Tamil Nadu excavation that has been in the news over the same years.
- Treating every early date reported from the site as equally settled. The rice date is the one this question turns on.
As a site-to-river or site-to-State identification, as a statements item on a recent excavation, or as a chronology question on early agriculture in India.
Consider the following statements about Kanaganahalli archaeological site : 1. It is situated on the bank of Bhima river. 2. The remains of the Kanaganahalli Stupa can be dated between 1st and 3rd centuries CE. 3. Emperor Ashoka’s image was found at the site. Which of the statements given above are correct?
- (a) 1 and 2 only
- (b) 2 and 3 only
- (c) 1 and 3 only
- (d) 1, 2 and 3
Answer(d) 1, 2 and 3
The same question type a year later — an excavation to be placed against a river and a date. Kanaganahalli sits on the Bhima in Karnataka as Sivakalai sits on the Thamirabarani in Tamil Nadu, and both items reward learning a site with the river that fixes it on the map.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The Thamirabarani river, associated with recent excavations in Tamil Nadu, drains into
- (a)the Palk Strait
- (b)the Gulf of Mannar
- (c)the Bay of Bengal near Nagapattinam
- (d)the Arabian Sea
Answer(b) the Gulf of Mannar — after running about 128 kilometres from the Pothigai hills through Tirunelveli and Thoothukudi districts.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Adichanallur, an archaeological site known for its urn burials, lies in which one of the following river valleys?
- (a)Vaigai
- (b)Kaveri
- (c)Thamirabarani
- (d)Palar
Answer(c) Thamirabarani — in the same valley as Sivakalai, in the far south of Tamil Nadu.