The megalithic burials of southern India—a wonderfully varied set of monuments—have long needed a chronology and a context. Broadly contemporary with the Roman and Sasanian empires, these dolmens, cairns and cists have continually raised contradictions with their material contents. The authors attack the problem using luminescence applied to pottery at the site of Siruthavoor in north-east Tamilnadu. Although sharing material culture, this first pilot project gave dates ranging from 300 BC to AD 600, so exposing the problem and perhaps, in OSL, its long-term solution.

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The use of satellite imagery is explored in mapping the distribution of archaeometallurgical sites for iron and steel production and as a tool for potential reconnaissance in northern districts of Telangana. Travellers' accounts from at least the seventeenth century suggest that this was an area where pre-industrial iron and steel production flourished, which is also testified by the vast amount of archaeometallurgical debris in the region. The geographical distribution of ferrous metal production sites within this landscape has been documented by integrating data from surface surveys on over 100 archaeometallurgical sites with satellite imagery. Despite the constraints that the surface sites could not be dated by archaeological excavation, this pilot study explores how satellite imagery and related experimental procedures may be used to complement surface archaeometallurgical surveys and reconnaissance efforts.

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