Archaeological studies began in Kerala during the colonial period. The first of such studies were Babington’s investigations into the Megalithic culture in Malabar. He excavated umbrella stone at Puthiyangadi in 1819, followed by similar excavations at Chathaparamba and Neelaparamba in Kozhikode. He unearthed four-legged pottery, flat pans, ring stands (props for round-bottomed vessels), and iron spears, swords, knives, spades, and spikes, besides carnelian beads. His ‘Illustrated Account of the Megalithic Graves of Malabar’, detailing his finds, is the first work of its kind about Kerala’s Iron Age or Megalithic culture.
Geologist Robert Bruce Foote explored southern India and unearthed several Lower Paleolithic and Upper Paleolithic age relics. He discovered a stone implement from Pallavaram in Madras in 1863 and scoured Kerala for similar relics but could not find any and concluded that Kerala did not have human settlements in the Lower Paleolithic era. Later discoveries, however, disproved his conclusions about Kerala. German missionary and Malayalam linguist Hermann Gundert has deciphered several ancient scripts and translated them into English. Gundert’s papers were published in the Madras Journal of Literature and Science. His findings underlined the importance of ancient inscriptions in the study of history.
In 1881, the Madras government entrusted Robert Sewel with preparing an inventory of the monuments, inscriptions, and other antique objects in the Presidency. He made a substantial compilation of artefacts in the tehsils of Chirakkal, Kottayam, Wayanad, Kurumbranad, Kozhikode, Ernad, Valluvanad, Ponnani, and Palakkad in Malabar district and Kochi and Travancore principalities and published it in 1883 as ‘List of the Antiquarian Remains in the Presidency of Madras’.
William Logan, who became the Collector of Malabar in 1875, made notable contributions in the field. During his time, the government decided to bring out the India Gazetteer and District Manuals, incorporating detailed accounts of the history, archaeology, sociology, revenue, agriculture, etc. of the region. Logan made detailed compilations of the social classes, customs, mores, economy, geology, and archaeology of the district. He infused the manual with insights into several new areas of knowledge that Europe had acquired then. The first part of the Malabar Manual was published in 1887.
The discovery of the prehistoric engravings in the Edakkal Caves in 1894 marked a significant milestone in the archaeological studies of Kerala. It was the recovery of a Neolithic-age stone axe from the vicinity of Edakkal Caves that led F. Fawcett, an ethno-archaeology enthusiast, to the discovery of the prehistoric engravings. The illustrated article he wrote in association with R.C. Temple in the 30th volume of Indian Antiquary in 1901, titled ‘Notes on the Rock Carvings in the Edakkal Cave, Wynaud’, was a scholarly effort. Fawcett had also inspected two Iron Age burial chambers near Kozhikode that came to light while mining for laterite. He reported recovering three clay pottery and four iron agricultural tools in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland in 1896 under the heading ‘Rock-cut Sepulchral Chamber in Malabar’. Similarly significant have been the contributions of E. Hultzsch, who was the first epigraphist of the Madras Presidency. He deciphered the inscriptions at Edakkal Caves, the Jewish copper plate, and the Tirunelli plates of the Chera king Bhaskara Ravi Varman. His works significantly impacted the direction of epigraphical studies in Kerala.
Thus, by the end of the 19th century, archaeological studies in Kerala had developed a strong base as a discipline at the initiative of European scholars. This prompted the establishment of archaeology Departments in Travancore and Kochi.
