A senior archaeologist has found engravings and Brahmi scripts on some artifacts collected from the surroundings of Kottaman Thodu near Kaladi in Ernakulam district, Kerla.
As per the archaeologist this engravings and Brahmi scripts belong to the Neolithic period.
The discovery will help to shed light on the existence of Megalithic and Neolithic culture in this area.
This large collection of artifacts is collected from the surroundings of the Kottaman Todu River in Kaladi, which is one of the tributaries of the Periyar River.
Collection includes artifacts belonging to the Neolithic and Megalithic cultures.
Examination of the Neolithic Axes had identified and deciphered Brahmi scripts on three axes among the 18 of them. Several Brahmi scripts and a few graffiti-like marks were seen incised on three of them, on one surface of each and the opposite side is blank.
The other Neolithic artifacts in the collection include beads made of semi-precious tourmaline rock, saddle querns, and round and cylindrical millers.
Megalithic artifacts in the collection included urn burial potsherds, iron implements such as spear-heads, daggers, arrow-heads and sickle.
The Neolithic and Megalithic cultural materials did not suffer much rolling due to the river, which indicate that the nearby area around Mekkaladi in Kaladi in Ernakulam district in
Central Kerala were inhabited by the Neolithic and Megalithic people in the late Holocene period.
Brahmi scripts were also reported from Menalloor temple near Kariavattom in Thiruvananthapuram and Kannur in Kerala.
Such Brahmi scripts and graffiti markings had been reported from the Megalithic context from Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka.
This wide occurrence of such ancient Bramhi scripts in South India and Sri Lanka probably show greater antiquity than the evolved Brahmi script of the Asoka period and is considered as significant.
Brahmi scripts
Brahmi is the modern name given to one of the oldest writing systems used in the Indian subcontinent and in Central Asia during the final centuries BCE and the early centuries CE.
Brahmi script is native to north and central India. While, Kharosthi was used in what is now Afghanistan and Western Pakistan.
The best-known Brahmi inscriptions are the rock-cut edicts of Ashoka in north-central India, dated to 250–232 BCE.
The script was deciphered in 1837 by James Prinsep, an archaeologist, philologist, and official of the East India Company.
The origin of the script is still much debated, with current Western academic opinion generally agreeing (with some exceptions) that Brahmi was derived from or at least influenced by one or more contemporary Semitic scripts.
But current of opinion in India favors the idea that it is connected to the much older and as-yet undeciphered Indus script.
The Gupta script of the 5th century is sometimes called "Late Brahmi".
The Brahmi script diversified into numerous local variants, classified together as the Brahmic scripts.
Dozens of modern scripts used across South Asia have descended from Brahmi, making it one of the world's most influential writing traditions.
Neolithic age
The Neolithic is also considered as New Stone age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 10,200 BC, in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world and ending between 4,500 and 2,000 BC.
Traditionally considered the last part of the Stone Age, the Neolithic followed the terminal Holocene Epipaleolithic period and commenced with the beginning of farming, which produced the "Neolithic Revolution".
It ended when metal tools became widespread (in the Copper Age or Bronze Age; or, in some geographical regions, in the Iron Age).
The Neolithic is a progression of behavioral and cultural characteristics and changes, including the use of wild and domestic crops and of domesticated animals.
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