A Mesolithic Site Discovered at Iduru-Kunjadi
A promising Mesolithic site is discovered at Iduru-Kunjadi in Kundapura taluk of the Udupi
district. Which is very near to a rock art site of Mesolithic period that has been reported earlier in 2019 by this author said Prof. T. Murugeshi in his press release here today. The site is located in the Mookambika wildlife reserve forest. The west coast of Karnataka consists of three districts, namely North Kanara, Udupi and South Canara, with Karwar, Udupi and Mangaluru as respective district headquarters. From a geological and environmental point of view, the west coast of Karnataka is akin to that of Kerala and Konkan. As many as twenty-three sites with mesolithic spread were discovered by L.S.Rao of ASI Branch in 1992-93. 14 sites by Shivtarak, 02 by Murugeshi T, 02 by Rajendran P and 01 by Raghavendra Shenoy.
Prof. Murugeshi has earlier reported a unique Mesolithic Rock Art site with microliths spread at Avalakkipare. It was the only site of its kind in coastal Karnataka. At Iduru-Kunjadi the finds of Mesolithic tools are characterised by blades, scrapers, burine, fluted cores, arrow-heads and flakes are of a non-geometric pattern. They resembled totally, the tools found in a stratigrafied context at Uppinangadi on the Netravati basin. Dr Rajendran assigned the date of Uppinngadi site to earlier than 4000 B.C. Prof. Murugeshi stated that the Iduru-Kunjadi site is assignable to 6000 B.C. On analyzing the rock art displayed at Avalakkipare, a conclusion can be drawn that Iduru-Kunjadi is just an extension of Avalakkipare site. The site Iduru-Kunjadi even today a huge grazing plain of variety of animals like wild buffaloes, wild bores deers and others and which supposedly might have been a hunting plain in prehistoric times.
by T Murugeshi