Chandigarh, Feb 12: Unravelling some facts which have till date remained buried in history, experts from Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) say the possibility of a sea link between South India and the rest of Asia about 3,800 years ago cannot be ruled out.
Arun Malik, an archaeologist with ASI, Chennai, while throwing light on Adichanallur civilisation, said here that the observation of human morphological types based on the cranial evidences point to an existence of more than one racial and ethnic group in that region during the period of the civilisation's long geo-historic period.
"Occurrences of intermediate and pure traits of yellow race of South East and Far East Asia and typical ethnic and tribal Indians on the external morphology of the skulls and bones give credence to the fact that a sea trade may have been there," says P Raghavan, a bio-anthropologist currently assisting ASI, Chennai, in studying geomorphological aspects of the excavations carried out in the area.
Malik says the latest excavations at the Adichanallur's prehistoric site along the coast of Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu have yielded more than 160 urns, many of which contain hundreds of different sized potteries. Husk, paddy and other cereals have also been found in the urns.
He says the people of Adichanallur were agrarian in nature, who also mastered blacksmithy and made a variety of iron implements. (Agencies)