Face to face with the past: What Keeladi reveals about ancient Tamil civilisation | I Witness

The Tamil Nadu state archaeology department, which took over excavations at Keeladi from the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) in 2018, obtained 29 radiocarbon dates from US lab Beta Analytics. These range from 580 BCE to 200 CE and confirm the site is contemporaneous with the urbanisation of the Gangetic plains and is part of India’s second urbanisation, which took place in the 6th century BCE. Archaeologists have pieced together — after studying residue in bowls and potsherds, skulls and bone fragments, and fossilised algae in terracotta pipes and ring wells — how people lived on the banks of the Vaigai some 2,500 years ago.