| Project: | The Kurnool Caves: Investigating the Upper Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic of southern India |
| Principal Investigator: | Dr. Mike Petraglia |
| Co-Investigators: | Dr. Marta Mirazón Lahr, Professor Ravi Korisettar |
| Collaborators: | Dr. Nicole Boivin, Dr. Nick Drake, Dr. Dorian Fuller, Dr. Preston Miracle, Dr. Stephen Stokes, Dr. P.C. Venkatasubbaiah |
| Funding: | NERC / EFCHED Programme |
This project, part of the broader project "Searching for traces of the Southern Dispersal", seeks to explore the Kurnool Cave Complex in southern India. The cave complex is part of India's remarkably rich archaeological heritage. However, only a few of the more than 100 caves have been investigated to date. Previous work, beginning with 19th century British geologists and amateurs, noted that deposits extended to >10 metres in depth. Several researchers have conducted more recent investigations, clearly indicating that the caves possess at least 4 metres of significant Upper Paleolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic assemblages (flake-tool, flake-blade, blade, microblade), bone tools, faunal collections (Insectivora, Chiroptera, Pholidota, Lagomorpha, Rodentia, Primates, Carnivora, Artiodactyla, Perissodactyla, Reptila, Amphibia, Crocodilia), and human remains (fragments of unknown age). The aim of our future work is to conduct archaeological investigation of the Kurnool Caves of Andhra Pradesh, in close collaboration with researchers at Karnatak University and Telugu University.