Marayur dolmens will soon get an international space with a research team from Kansai University, Japan, completing its documentation in a tie-up with the Kerala University’s Archaeological Department. The team has started chronicling the dolmen sites. Geoarchaeology professor of Kansai University Akinori Uesugi told The Hindu on Thursday that it was for the first time that the university was having a tie-up with a varsity in Kerala to document the megalithic era site.
Marayur’s megalithic era site has a large number of dolmens spread over an entire area. The documentation would help in transcending the contribution of Marayur as a historically important place to future researchers, he said.
He is supported by university researcher Kato Shuniya. The team has documented the dolmens at Murugan Hill, Pius Nagar, Kottakulam, Muniyara Colony, and Kundakadu.
According to Abhayan G.S. of the Archaeological Department, Kerala University, protection of the dolmens remains a big task and documenting would help in protecting them for future researchers.
He said the university had already started a five-year project to document the megalithic sites in the State under the Kerala Megalithic Gazetteer Project. The documentation in three taluks of Thiruvananthapuram was almost completed in addition to Kozhikode and Kasaragod. The tie-up with the Kansai University is exclusively for documenting the Marayur dolmen.
He said that Marayur’s cave paintings also pointed to its link to the pre-historic era. In the first phase of the project, only dolmens would be documented. It would also chronicle the cave paintings and other sites of historical importance at Marayur, he said.