Description (Labels & Markings)
Oval paper label with red border is adhered to the object and has a handwritten note reading: 'India. Prehistoric cinder-mound Kapgal [?] Bellary'
Event Date
Author: Lizzy Peneycad

Context (References)
Sewell, R. (1899). 'The Cinder-Mounds of Bellary.' Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Volume 31, Issue 1, pp. 1-16.
Event Date 1899
Author: Lizzy Peneycad

Context (References)
Foote, Robert Bruce (1916). 'The Foote Collection of Indian Prehistoric and Protohistoric Antiquities: Notes on the Their Ages and Distribution', Government Museum of Madras. pp. 79-80. pp. 82-83, 90-96.
Event Date 1916
Author: Lizzy Peneycad

Context (Analysis)
Ashmounds (or cinder-mounds) in India were suggested by Robert Bruce Foot (1916) to have been formed during the Neolithic period by burning dung. Foote notes that: 'In several of the cinder specimens are very distinct traces of straw showing that it was largely a source of the siliceous material mainly composing the cinder masses. Cinder from the Budikanama mound shows the traces of straw very clearly.' On the possible formation of the mounds, Foote notes that: 'These great mounds of cowdung would be liable to take fire when dry in the hot weather and unless the fire were purposely extinguished by the people it would go on smouldering and the ashes produced would be of a scoriaceous nature. In sites that the people were attached to, the cowdung mound building would undoubtedly be continued by generation after generation and the mound would be occasionally burnt.'
Event Date 1916
Author: Lizzy Peneycad

Description (Physical description)
Catalogue card for 1926.211 A-B: 'Two fragments of the prehistoric cinder mounds.'
Event Date 1926
Author: maa

Context (References)
Boivin, Nicole (2004). 'Landscape and cosmology in the South Indian Neolithic: New Perspectives on the Deccan Ashmounds', Cambridge Archaeological Journal, Volume 14, Issue 2, pp. 235-257.
Event Date 2004
Author: Lizzy Peneycad

Description (Physical description)
Small fragment of an ashmound. Buff, grey and white coloured surface with a vesicular texture.
Event Date 6/10/2023
Author: Lizzy Peneycad