Chennai: An archaeology student from University of Madras has found two pre-historic sites at Chinnamalai in Malaipalayam village and Senjerimalai in Sulur near Coimbatore. A rock shelter with red ochre geometric paintings, microlithic tools such as borer, thumbnail scrapers and hammer stones were found in Chinnamalai, while the nearby Senjerimalai yielded stone tools and debitage.“It is rare to find the rock art with red ochre paintings and in-situ microlithic tools. The two hillocks were separated by just 1.4km,” said Umamaheswari G, a postgraduate student from the ancient history and archaeology department, University of Madras, who found the site during an archaeological exploration in the region. She found 150 stone tools and seven stone tool artefacts.“On the basis of typo-technological analysis we have identified stone tools such as a borer, thumbnail scrapers, a notched tool, end scrapers,” said Jinu Koshy, excavation in charge, department of ancient history and archaeology, University of Madras.“The bipolar flaking technique is dominant and is consistent with the locally sourced quartz and crystal quartz nodules. Crystal quartz was preferentially selected for finer tools. The quartzite hammerstone recovered from the Senjerimalai cave bears clear battering marks on its striking edges. Fine-grained quartzite is entirely absent from the local bedrock geology and it is physical evidence that prehistoric people could have had contacts with other regions,” he added.Archaeologist V Selvakumar, who excavated Molapalayam, a neolithic site near Coimbatore, said quartz microliths are common in shelters of Coimbatore and Palakkad regions. “We have identified such microlithic sites at Maruthamalai, Walayar, Siruvani Falls, Bharathiyar University campus, Kumittipathi and Thiruchengode.”Both these hillocks carry a documented medieval history. “The Mandhiragiri Velayudhaswamy temple at Senjerimalai bears Hoysala inscription dated to 1339 CE, recording the renovations by the Hoysala chieftain, with the original structure attributed to Karikala Chola. The Sundararaja Perumal temple at Chinnamalai dates to Nayak period,” said J Soundararajan, associate professor and head, department of ancient history and archaeology, University of Madras. Experts said further investigations are needed to assign the period in which the tools and rock paintings were done.
