Ancient People in India Might Have Buried Their Dead in Gigantic Stone Jars

Ancient People in India Might Have Buried Their Dead in Gigantic Stone Jars

The enormous stone jars may be linked to mysterious containers discovered in Laos.

The first four jar sites were found by British archaeologists in Assam state in 1928. Expeditions to the region by a team of archaeologists since 2014 have discovered six more sites in Assam and neighboring Meghalaya state. Credit: Tilok Thakuria

Archaeologists have found hundreds of ancient and immense stone jars on hillsides in the far northeast of India that may have been utilized in funeral ceremonies. Moreover, the human-size vessels may be linked to mysterious containers discovered in northern Laos approximately 800 miles (1,300 kilometers) away, according to the researchers.

The jars in India and the jars in Laos are around 2,400 years old and are believed to have been utilized in human burials, although no human remains have yet been discovered in the freshly uncovered vessels.

Prehistoric individuals that crafted the stone jars could have journeyed between northern Laos and northeastern India. However, there is no evidence yet that the same people had inhabited both locations, stated archaeologist Tilok Thakuria of North Eastern Hill University in India’s Meghalaya state.

” Perhaps it was the same group of individuals,” Thakuria told Live Science. “Perhaps they extended where they inhabited [from Laos] into northeast India once upon a time.”

He claimed that British archaeologists found the first of the jars in 1928 at four sites in Assam state, simply to the east of Meghalaya state.

Nonetheless, the region is so remote that no further work was done until 2014, when Thakuria and archaeologist Tiatoshi Jamir from Nagaland University began investigating. They have currently found 11 jar sites in the area and discovered over 700 jars, Thakuria stated.

Ancient funerals

A few of the jar sites in northeastern India are now greatly overgrown by forest, and also some of the jars are almost totally buried.

Several of the jars are tall and cylindrical, like the 10-foot-tall stone jars in Laos, but others are conical near the bottom or have the shape of 2 cones joined at their biggest width, Thakuria claimed.

Each jar has been laboriously sculpted from local sandstone and is big enough to hold the bones from a human body or a body itself in a crouched position, which has been common in jar burials all over the world at different times.

The jars in India might have been covered with lids, although none currently seem to linger. Some are embellished with geometric carvings; an impressive carved portrait of a man or woman was located on a curved stone at one of the jars sites, something that has not been discovered elsewhere, he stated.

Thakuria and his colleagues have now made several excursions into the area, the most recent in 2020. All the jar sites are in a small area and are situated between 6 and 9 miles (10 and 15 km) from each other, primarily on the Assam side of the state border and on the Meghalaya side.

Their latest explorations revealed more than 500 of the ancient stone jars at a single site in Assam– a greater number than at the largest jar site in Laos, where about 400 jars have been discovered.

Like the jars in Laos, it is possible that the jars in Assam and Meghalaya were utilized for subjecting the dead to the environment until just the bones would remain; or, perhaps, they have been for burying the bones of dead after their bodies had been cremated or exposed, Thakuria stated.

Gigantic stone jars

Far, nonetheless, all the jars examined in India have been vacant– yet Thakuria notes the local Naga people know of the jars and reports that some of them once held cremated remains, beads, and other artifacts.

He claimed there is a possibility that the group will discover human remains in jars that have ended up being buried in the centuries since they were utilized and are yet to be evaluated.

The researchers currently want to go back to the region in its dry season, which starts in December, to excavate and thoroughly record some of the jars’ sites. That work may include excavating around and underneath the stone jars to look for offerings or human bones.

“The excavations in Laos have located bound skeletons and offerings of pottery below the jars, and we are expecting to see that pattern here,” Thakuria claimed.

If they do find human remains, they may be able to evaluate ancient DNA from the bones to find out more about individuals who made and used the jars.

Furthermore, while jar burials are not utilized in the region today, and none of the individuals that live there currently assert the jars are relics of their ancestors, ancient DNA evaluation could identify offspring of the jar-makers.

Thakuria is the lead author of a study into the Indian jars published online on March 28 in the journal Asian Archaeology. Study co-authors feature archaeologists Uttam Bathari from India’s Gauhati University and Nicholas Skopal from the Australian National University in Canberra.


Read the original article on Live Science.

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