Archaeological Investigations at the Brahmagiri rock shelter: Prospecting for its context in South India late prehistory and early history

Recent investigations in the granitic landscapes of late prehistoric sites in southern Deccan are increasingly identifying rock shelters in and near open air settlement sites, suggesting regular use and reuse of shelters by the occupants. These shelters are either associated with cultural materials or rock art, or both, as in the case of newly found shelter at Brahmagiri, and this research attempts to contextualise it within the south Indian late prehistory and early history, through the study of its deposited cultural materials and the pictographs found within. Classification, sequencing and chronology of the panel motifs are proposed based on its stratigraphy (differential pigment colours and image superpositioning) and image morphology (form and technique). The approach taken here is less common than the subject matter based classification usually applied in Indian rock art studies and was selected because the panel has poor thematic and diagnostic elements, except for the motifs of two horse riders and two objects. Based on my analysis, I propose an Iron Age date for the images and the primary use of the rock shelter.