Introduction

'Nature' considered as either the given material environment that people inhabit or a system of knowledge about environmental processes can be regarded as an historical outcome of culturally- and socially-mediated human environment relations. Here, I review evidence suggesting that Iron Age inhabitants (1200 BC - 500 BC) of the Tungabhadra River corridor (northern Karnataka, South India) modified and created rock pools, weathering grooves and soil distributions in the process of producing meaningful places. Relying on field observations and remote sensing analyses, I attribute the modification of these landscape features to a variety of cultural activities, ranging from agro-pastoral subsistence production to the construction of elaborate megalithic mortuary complexes. I suggest that Iron Age activities associated with producing this cultural landscape were linked with strategies for creating and negotiating socio-political differences during the period. In this sense, many of the landscape features (e.g. modified rock pools) within the study region although commonly discussed as 'natural' attributes of tropical landforms by both geomorphologists and ecologists can also be considered the results of a particular confluence of cultural logic, socio-political practice and material conditions.

Rock pools and megaliths

Rock pools and weathering grooves are water retaining depressions that commonly occur in exposed bedrock on residual hills of the heavily weathered tropics and sub-tropics. As a class of features, they are generally considered to have formed by subsurface differential weathering before the hill was elevated above the surrounding plain through erosion (cf. Büdel 1982; Reference ThomasThomas 1994). Once established, the depressions tend to expand by differential weathering, facilitated by their ability to retain water and promote bacteria growth on the rock face, causing additional mineral oxidation and exfoliation. Despite their natural occurrence, it is clear that many rock pools and weathering grooves within the study area of the Tungabhadra corridor were modified, expanded, demarcated, and even created by prehistoric inhabitants. Moreover, their regular association with the production of isolated and exclusive ritual places suggests they were not simply conceived of as a utilitarian source of water, but rather were symbolically and materially integrated into strategic ritual activities that both produced and negotiated social differences during the Iron Age.

Figure 2.

Large dolmens on the quarried banks of a modified rock pool at Hire Benakal.

Figure 3.

Two modified rock pools surrounded by boulder and block supported dolmens at site EHLTC-054.

There are numerous sites within the Tungabhadra River corridor where an association between modified rocks pools, weathering grooves and megaliths can be found (Figure 1). For example, at Hire Benakal hundreds of dolmen megaliths are found near a broad rock pool that was expanded by quarrying activities, likely for the construction of monuments (Figure 2). It is also particularly noteworthy that, at many megalithic sites in the study region, like-sized and shaped granite cobbles (e.g. thin rectilinear cobble blocks) were used both to embank rock pools and to create the supports for dolmen monument capstones. In other words, water retention features and the monuments clustered around them often contain nearly identical construction elements, creating material and symbolic links between the social activities of monument construction and rock pool creation or modification (Figure 3). Thus, it appears that the production and modification of water retention features were also integral to the production of exclusive access ritual places, and further implies ritual dimensions to early water management in the region.

Figure 4.

ASTER based surface classification.

Figure 5.

Proportional differences of surface materials on hills that show evidence for Iron Age occupation and those that do not, derived from a satellite classification of ASTER visible, near-IR and mid-IR reflectance.

Soil distributions and the socio-politics of agro-pastoral production

The study region is characterised by residual hillocks of rounded rocks produced by weathering and soil removal. An examination of the remaining soil and exposed rock based on a multi-spectral classification of ASTER satellite data has shown that those hills that were heavily occupied during the Iron Age contain 10% less soil cover and more freshly exposed residual rock than those that were not, suggesting that rates of soil loss increased with Iron Age occupational intensity in the study area (Figures 4-5) (cf. A. Reference BauerBauer 2007; Bauer & Morrison in press). Soil retention walls and check-dams are found on Iron Age sites within the study area (in association with fragmented ceramics typical of the period), implying that ancient inhabitants recognised soil erosion in areas of intensive land use (Figure 6).

The control of soil movement evidenced within the study area was most likely associated with agro-pastoral production. Differential participation in the production and consumption of herded and hunted animals was a basis for social-political distinction during the period (e.g. A. Bauer et al. 2007; R. Reference BauerBauer 2007). Thus, soil stripping associated with agro-pastoral production and the construction of retention walls should be considered in the context of a larger social landscape, and viewed as part of a process of producing economic, social and symbolic resources.

Figure 6.

Soil retention features in association with Black-and-Red Ware ceramics at site EHLTC-150.

Conclusion

All of these activities were concurrent parts of strategies of reproducing differential access to material, social and symbolic resources. To the Iron Age inhabitants of the Tungabhadra corridor, rock pools, weathering grooves and soil distributions were not simply elements of 'Nature', but rather were products and components of social negotiations of access to ritual places and production locales. There can be no doubt that these 'natural' features had significance for the ancient inhabitants who created them in the processes of producing a socially and culturally meaningful landscape.