Reimagining South Asian Art, Culture and Archaeology

Contents: Preface. Chapters. 1. Archaeology: Fundamentals Issues and the Way Forward/Amita Satyal. 2. Recent Findings on Vangchhia Excavation and Explorations in and around Mizoram/Sujeet Nayan. 3. Archaeological Explorations at Ganaur Tehsil, District Sonipat, Haryana/Parveen Kumar, Arun Kumar Singh. 4. Riddle of the Rhino: Tracing early human migration in India through the cave paintings of Bhimbetka/Turzo Nicholas Mondal, Suddhabrata Chakraborty. 5. Stylistic Patterns of Ganesha Image/Chabina Hassan, Dwipen Bezbaruah. 6. (In Hindi) 7. Ancient Epigraphic Records of Bihar: A Numismatic Perspective/Anantashutosh Dwivedi. 8. A preliminary study of the prehistoric tools collected from Santal Parganas and deposited at Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo by Reverend Paul Olaf Bodding with a special focus on the raw material/Soumyajit Das. 9. Art and Architecture of Kapili Jamuna Valley/Nabajit Deori, Dwipen Bezbaruah. 10. Tracing the Linkages of Buddhism between Ancient South- Eastern Bengal and South-East Asia: An Overview/Subhas Chand Kapur.

This edited volume contains ten original research papers and essays on various aspects of South Asian art, culture and archaeology. The authors address the broad issues of trans- disciplinarity and cultural complexity attested with the art and archaeological practices of South Asia. It opens with a serious discussion on fundamental issues of archaeology and suggests effective ways that would reframe the archaeological methods of the future. The focus shift from the monument-centric approach to a collaborative trans-disciplinary endeavor eventually reconceptualises archaeology as integrated into other disciplines. The voluminous rise in archaeological data generated through more sophisticated scientific equipment testifies the close collaboration of archaeology with science. The study of cultural sequence, urbanization pattern, and contextual analysis of material objects with nearby sites emerging more as a recent trend projects a novel research trajectory of moving away from the conventional norms of disciplinary studies and thereby adopting inter-disciplinary perspective in art-cultural studies. 
This book includes some preliminary reports of recent explorations and excavations conducted in Vangchhia (Mizoram) and Gannaur (Haryana). The report highlights the huge distribution of menhirs, petroglyphs, potteries, burial sites, and sculptural fragments all around Mizoram, thereby outlying the distinguish presence of Vangchhia culture. The volume also builds new perspectives to study the stylistic patterns, artistic developments, architectural expansion, and cultural complexity through the site-specific study. These studies focus on site specific empirical research and demonstrate trans-disciplinarity and inter-disciplinary orientation of research in ancient South Asian studies.