MUCHCHATLA CHINTAMANU GAVI
15.420800,78.147200
Description
Three tiny, north-east facing cave entrances give access to a comparatively small but archaeologically important single-chamber cave with one chamber: »This cave, which is totally dark for a major part of the year, gets partially to fully lighted in the summer months, roughly from mid-February to June« (MURTY, M L K 1974a: 198-200). ETYMOLOGY: The recorded cave name »Muchchatla Chintamanu Gavi« (MURTY, M L K 1974a: 198) is probably not an indigenous, autochthonous or locally known name but a made-up field name fabricated by combining the Telugu name "Muchchatla" of a "vagu" (stream, valley) with "chintamanu", the Telugu word for a tamarind tree (botanically Tamarindus indica). So far, I saw the name of this cave spelled, transcribed or edited as Mucchatla Chintamanu Gavi SOUNDARA RAJAN, K V (1989: 77) Muchchatla Chintamanu Gavi DESHPANDE - MUKHERJEE, A; MURTY, M L K & BADAM, G L (2005); Indian Archaeology: A Review [IAR] (1980-81 / 1983); MURTY, M L K (1974a: 198; 1975: 132; 1985: 192) Munchalla Chinlamanu Gavi Perrin, Jerome (2010.02.02 Mss). SITUATION: MURTY, M L K (1975-1976: 362) placed the entrance to this cave named in hounour of a tamarind tree on the escarpment above the streambed of the Muchchatla vagu (note 1) but MURTY, M L K (1974: 198) above a tributary to it and anyhow in relation to the village and railway station of Betamcherla (note 2), which is said to lie at unspecified distances (perhaps in a direct line but possibly along a route) ranging between 3.5 km due south (MURTY 1974a: 197) and 4.5 km south-west (MURTY 1974a: 196, 1975: 136) or 5 km south-west (MURTY 1975-1976: 362; SOUNDARA RAJAN 1989: 77). POSITION: It is difficult to reconstruct what MURTY, M L K (1975: 136) had in mind when he positioned both of the »two caves known as Muchchatla Chintamanu Gavi and Pedda Pavuralla Badde« at one and the same position, that is to say near (apparent precision error ±3.1 km) »Lat 15°25', Long 78°8'« and thus in an area about halfway between the railway station at Betamcherla (N15°26'50”: E078°08'55” Everest 1830) and the Muchchatleswara Temple (N15°24'30”: E078°06'45” Everest 1830). The cave entrance has also been positioned near N15°25'15”: E078°08'50” MURTY, M L K (1974a: 197 figure 1) N15°24'40”: E078°07'00” MURTY, M L K (1975: 133 figure 1) N15°25': E078°08' Indian Archaeology: A Review [IAR] 1980-1981 (1983: 102); MURTY, M L K (1975: 136); SOUNDARA RAJAN, K V (1989 in GOSH, A 1989: 78). IDENTITY: This cave is possibly identical -- but his is mere guesswork -- with the cave »of moderate size« (no name mentioned) which FOOTE, R B (1884a: 33-34) was »unable to visit from pressure of work at Billa Surgam« but was told to »occur in the valley of the Gorlagootla stream [i.e. Muchchatla vagu], and will probably be found in connection with a very fine group of limestone cliffs standing on the north side of the stream.«This location is about the same as that indicated in a "Profile Showing the Location of Cave" (MURTY, M L K 1974a: 198 figure 2) and one of the two caves near »Gorlaguntla« (FOOTE, R B 1884a: 33), »Gorlogunta« (FOOTE, R B 1885: 235) or –>Gollagutta. CAVE DESCRIPTION after MURTY (1974a: 198-200 with figure 6 cave plan) and MURTY (1975-1976: 362): At the base of a north-east facing cliff lie not only three entrances (photograph in MURTY 1975-1976 figure 2, plate 70) but also an impenetrable porcupine hole to »cleft-like« rift cave passages. The easternmost (first) rift passage (2.5 m on 250°, decreasing from 1.2 m to 0.62 m in width) and the second, central one (3.2 m on 250°, decreasing from 0.8 m to 0.65 m in width) meet in an antechamber (circa 7 square metres) which leads, like the third, westernmost rift passage (6 m on 225°, decreasing from 0.5 m to 0.8 m in width), into the main chamber (3.9 m by 8.2 m wide). Even after archaeological excavation, the general height (except the exterior part of the first rift passage) is less than 1.25 m (0.8 m high before excavation) in the cave passages (note 3). CAVE POTENTIAL: MURTY (1974a: 198-200, figure 6) provides a cave plan which shows three continuing but apparently unexplored (unexcavated?) leads, of which the two smaller leads appear to come back to the surface while the third and widest continuation gives the impression of trending parallel or even slightly away from the cliff face. CULTURAL HISTORY - fabulous tunnels: MURTY (1974a) notes legendary underground connections via fabulous tunnels to the caves at –>Yaganti and –>Billa Surgam, which are merely 10 km as the crow flies away and only separated from each other by the valley of Muchchatla river. ARCHAEOLOGY: The excavation has yielded 2226 Upper Palaeolothic specimens, of which 223 belong to the lithic industry and the remaining 2003 to the bone-tool industry (note 4). The excavations revealed a Neolithic perforated pot (MURTY 1975-1976, plate 71) with no antedecent overlap with the preceding pre-Neolithic levels. In the bottommost layer a concentration of cultural and faunal material suggests a co-eval commencement of both human activity and sedimentation. The lithic industry revealed the blade element, comparable with the blade and burin facies found elsewhere in Kurnool district as well as Chittoor district around Renigunta. By their massive size and lack of delicate retouch, they are also distinctly different from typical Mesolithic assemblages. The industry falls short of regular tool types like backed blade varieties, scrapers and burins as noted in the adjacent region and might be considered incipient in character. While bone artifacts were found, the absence of occupation floors, charcoal and ashes and accumulation of flood refuse indicates that the cave was probably no living habitational site. This might suggest that the pattern of living was perhaps nomadic and the sites were of transit nature. JACOBSON (1979: 479): »Most upper palaeolithic artifacts [in India] have been found in surface scatters or in stratiphied riverbank sections, but they recently have been discovered in sand dunes in north-western India (note 5), in stratified deposits from at least two rock shelters in the Bhimbetka group (note 6), and in Muchchatla Chintamanu Gavi cave in Andhra Pradesh. … Bone tools now appear for the first time in the Indian sequence. Confirming nineteenth century reports of bone tools excavated with Pleistocene fauna (FOOTE, Robert Bruce 1885; LYDEKKER 1886a, 1886b), a recent excavation in the Muchchatla Chintamanu Gavi cave of Andhra Pradesh yielded a similar association as well as an assemblage of Upper Palaeolithic stone tools (MURTY 1974, 1975). These bone tools are described as scrapers, perforators, chisels, scoops, shouldered points, barbs, and spatulas.« Thermoluminescence (TL) date »BARC sample: burnt clay samples [contributed by M L K Murty, Deccan College Post-graduate and Research Institute, Pune] from a seemingly fire place in an ancient cave location, Muchchatla Chintamanu Gavi (15°25' N 78°8' E); time of excavation March 1979, time of TL dating, October 1979 … TL age [contributed by K. S. Nambi of the Health Physics Division of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Bombay] 17405 yrs. BP ±10%)« (Indian Archaeology: A Review [IAR] 1980-81 / 1983: 102).NAMBI & MURTY (1983) date the Upper Palaeolithic in Muchchatla Chintamanu Gavi with thermoluminescence to 17’390 BP. GOGTE & MURTY (1985) dated samples from Muchchatla Chintamanu Gavi with a doubtfully calibrated ESR method (electro spin resonance, Advanced Centre for Nuclear Chemistry, Pune) to 893 BP (trench F, bone, depth 20-40 cm), 5247 BP (F, bone, 40-60 cm), 9498 BP (B4, tooth, 120-135 cm), 16'686 BP (B4, tooth, 150-165 cm), 19'224 BP (F4, bone, 165-180 cm) and corroborate the age of the Upper Palaeolithic cultural materials. KAJALE et al (1991) investigated archaeological wood remains from the prehistoric cave site. PRASAD (1996: 32) reports radiometric Carbon-14 (14C) dating carried out at the Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad, in 1979 and subsequent years, which established an age of 50'000 BP for bone tools, flakes and scrapers from Muchchatla Chintamanu Gavi. DESHPANDE - MUKHERJEE, MURTY & BADAM (2005) investigated some aspects of the terrestrial Gastropod shell assemblage from the Mesolithic cave site of Muchchatla Chintamanu Gavi and arrived in believing that »overall cultural material [reported from caves in the Kurnool district] yielded ample evidence for the human occupation of the caves during the late Pleistocene« (note 7). CAVE LIFE: MURTY (1974) noticed animal traps put up to catch porcupines (Hystrix).
NOTE 1: Muchchatleswara devalam (temple) N15°24'30”: E78°06'45”: 400 m asl (Everest 1830, Survey of India sheet 57-I/03 edition 1983). NOTE 2: Betamcherla N15°27': E78°08'30”: circa 405 m asl (Everest 1830, Survey of India sheet 57-I/03 edition 1983). NOTE 3: The cave entrance lies »in the escarpment of a small canyon, through which a streamlet flows [during wet season only] into the stream Muchchatla Vagu … The Muchchatla Chintamanu Gavi is oriented 310° west-northwest. It is 34 m away from the centre of the streamlet channel, situated at a height of 10 m in the limestone escarpment whose total height is 32 m. The front portion of the cave is a scree covered with debris comprised of massive boulders and slabs of limestone, irregular lumps and fragments of limestone and shale, and sandy-clayey red earth. The scree all along the escarpment is covered with scrub jungle. The cave has three narrow cleft-like passages which were sealed of with limestone blocks and slabs, by the villagers, while they laid traps for porcupine. The passages from the exterior are 2.5 m (20° NE), 3.2 m (310° WNW), and 6.0 m (330° NNW) long, respectively. Passages 1 and 2 connect with an antechamber of roughly 7 square metre area before leading into the cave. The cave as one enters from the passages is 3.9 m long and 8.2 m broad. Passages 1 and 2 at the exterior-entrance and at the place of opening into the antechamber, measure in breadth, respectively: (a) 1.2 m and 0.62 m and (b) 0.8 m and 0.65 m, and passage 3 that directly leads into the cave is 0.5 m and 0.8 m broad, at the outside entrance and inside opening respectively. The maximum height of the floor (top layer 1) to the roof before excavation in passage 1 is 1.7 m, in passage 2 is 0.45 m and is 0.92 m in passage 3. The height from below to the roof in passage 1 abruptly diminishes to 0.45 m at a distance of 0.8 m from the exterior, from where the passage 1 continues into the antechamber. Even after excavation the general height from the floor to the roof (excepting at the exterior of passage 1) is not more than 1.25 m either in the passages or in the cave. The excavated passages slope inward from the entrance until they join the cave and the floor level gradually rises again towards the inner wall of the cave. This cave, which is totally dark for a major part of the year, gets partially to fully lighted in the summer months, roughly from mid-February to June« (MURTY 1974a: 198-200). NOTE 4: MURTY (1974a: 204-227), summarised by MURTY (1975, 1975-1976) and SOUNADAR RAJAN (1989), described the finds. MURTY & THIMMA REDDY (1976) compared the lithic finds of Muchchatla Chinatamanu Gavi with other finds from the caves at Billa Surgam, Gorlagutta and two open-air sites in the Kunderu river area .NOTE 5: ALLCHIN, GOUDIE & HEDGE (1978): The prehistory and palaeogeography of the Great Indian Desert.- (London: Academic Press), 370 pages. NOTE 6: WAKANKAR (1978): The dawn of Indian art.- (Ujjain: Vishnu Bhatnagar for Bharati Kala Bhawan), 24 pages. NOTE 7: »The ambiguity surrounding the bone ‘tools’ and the lack of stone artefacts from the Foote excavations [in –>Billa Surgam] does not lend support to such claims« (HASLAM et al. 2010: 10, 18 note 85).
Documents
Bibliography 27/04/2016- Deshpande - Mukherjee, A; Murty, M L K [krishna] & Badam, G L 2005. Indian Archaeology: A Review [IAR] 1980-81 / 1983. Foote, Robert Bruce 1884a, 1885. Gogte, V D & Murty, M L K 1985. Haslam, M et al. 2010. Jacobson, Jerome 1979. Kajale, Mukul D; Murty, M L K; Sharma, B L; Dayal, R & Rao, R V 1991. Murty, M L K 1970, 1974a, 1975, 1976, 1983, 1985. Murty, M L K & Thimma Reddy, K 1976. Nambi, K V S & Murty, M L K 1983. Soundara Rajan, K V 1989. Soundara Rajan, K V in: Archaeological Survey of India 1977-78. Thimma Reddy, K 1980.
History
EXPLORATION HISTORY: 1884: »Two other caves west of Gorlogunta [Gollagunta], near Billa Surgam, were visited by Lieutenant [Henry Bruce] Foote early in 1984« (FOOTE, Robert B 1885: 235). 1970 (instead 1979): »In recent years Mucchatla [sic!] Chintamanu Gavi (15°25': 78°8'), 5 km s.-w. of Betamcherla, was excavated by Murty, 1970« (SOUNDARA RAJAN, K V 1989: 77). 1979: »Muchchatla Chintamanu Gavi (15°25' N 78°8' E); time of excavation March 1979, time of TL dating, October 1979« (Indian Archaeology: A Review [IAR] 1980-81 / 1983: 102). 2010.01.03: Jerome Perrin (2010.02.02 Mss) dedicated one day to investigate caves in the vicinity of Betamcherla and found »no indication on the possible location of … Munchalla Chinlamanu [sic!] Gavi.«
Caves nearby
| Distance (km) | Name | Length (m) | Depth (m) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.3 | GOKARABADDHA GAVI | ||
| 0.4 | NEMMICHELI GAVI | ||
| 0.4 | NEMMICHELI GAVI (Perrin 2010) | ||
| 0.5 | GURRUM PATINATADE | ||
| 1.1 | BOYA DARI | ||
| 1.3 | ERRABADDE GAVI , 1st | ||
| 1.3 | ERRABADDE GAVI, 2nd | ||
| 1.3 | ERRABADDE GAVI, 3rd | ||
| 2.0 | NAGIREDDYBADDE |