Mesolithic site discovered at Karnataka's Iduru-Kunjadi

A Mesolithic site has been discovered at Iduru-Kunjadi in Kundapura taluk of Udupi district by Prof T Murugeshi, associate professor of ancient history and archaeology at MSRS College, Shirva.

The site is near a rock art site of the Mesolithic period that was unearthed in 2019 by him.

According to Prof Murugeshi, the site is located in the Mookambika wildlife reserve forest. At Iduru-Kunjadi, the finds of Mesolithic tools are characterised by blades, scrapers, burine, fluted cores, arrow-heads and flakes of non-geometric pattern. They resembled the tools found in a stratigrafied context at Uppinangady on the Netravati basin, he added.

Prof Murugeshi stated that the Iduru-Kunjadi site may date back to 6000 BC.

On analysing the Mesolithic Rock Art site with microliths spread at Avalakkipare, one can conclude that Iduru-Kunjadi is just an extension of Avalakkipare site. The site, Iduru-Kunjadi, is a huge grazing plain of a variety of animals like wild buffalos, wild boars and deer and which supposedly might have been a hunting area in prehistoric times, he added.