Read the Review
Foundation essays, site studies, research reviews and data-led analysis. Use the subject filters or global search to move across ancient and modern South Asia.
Indus Script Research Laboratory
A public corpus, provenance and hypothesis-testing framework for studying the script without assuming a language in advance.
Can Code Decipher the Indus Script? A Review of the Kee2u Project
A public code repository offers a serious experiment in Tamil morphology and sign statistics. Its results are useful, but they do not yet identify the Harappan language or produce a decipherment.
Can Mathematics Read the Indus Script as Old Tamil?
Watch Adwait Kulkarni’s presentation of a computational approach to the Indus script, published by Yajna Devam, with links and full credits to the original creators.
What Was the Indus Valley Civilisation?
A concise evidence-led guide to one of the world’s earliest urban traditions — its cities, economy, writing, technology and unresolved questions.
The Indus Script: What We Know and What We Do Not
Hundreds of signs, thousands of inscriptions and no consensus decipherment: a careful guide to the evidence and the limits of inference.
Dholavira: Water, Urban Form and Harappan Ingenuity
Why the desert-edge city of Dholavira is central to understanding Harappan engineering and adaptation.
Rakhigarhi and Ancient DNA: What Genetics Can — and Cannot — Tell Us
Ancient DNA has transformed population history, but archaeological identity and genetic ancestry are not the same thing.
Lothal and the Maritime Networks of the Harappan World
A coastal settlement at the centre of debates about Harappan seafaring, trade and hydraulic engineering.
Keeladi: Evidence, Chronology and Significance
A new evidence review finds strong support for a major early-historic settlement in the Vaigai valley, while separating radiocarbon dates from broader claims about literacy, cities and Indus-script continuity.
Adichanallur: Burials, Technology and an Archaeological Puzzle
The famous urn-burial site offers a deep record of social practice and technology, while reminding us how much early excavation history can complicate interpretation.
Tamil-Brahmi and the Early History of Writing in the Tamil Region
How inscriptions help reconstruct language, mobility and social life — and why palaeographic dating must be combined with archaeological context.
Kodumanal: Craft Production on an Ancient Trade Corridor
Beads, iron, ceramics and connectivity make Kodumanal a key site for studying specialised production in early South India.
Ancient Tamilakam: Reconstructing a Region from Archaeology and Text
A method-first guide to combining Sangam literature, inscriptions, coins, settlements and external accounts.
Can Sangam Literature Be Used as Historical Evidence?
Yes — but only with attention to genre, transmission, chronology and independent corroboration.
Tamilakam and the Roman Mediterranean: Trade Beyond the Mythology
Coins, amphorae, ceramics, ports and texts reveal intense exchange — but “Roman colony” narratives usually go far beyond the evidence.
Anuradhapura: City, Monastery and Long-Duration Urbanism
Sri Lanka’s ancient capital is a laboratory for studying urban growth, religious institutions, irrigation and regional exchange.
Mantai: A Port at the Crossroads of the Indian Ocean
Northern Sri Lanka’s major port shows how island history was shaped by mobility, exchange and changing maritime routes.
South India and Sri Lanka Before Modern Ethnic Categories
Movement across the Palk Strait is ancient; interpreting it requires archaeology rather than projecting today’s identities backwards.
Megalithic South India: Burials, Iron and Regional Diversity
“Megalithic” describes archaeological practices, not a single people. The evidence points to diverse communities and long regional sequences.
Radiocarbon Dating: What an Archaeological Date Actually Means
A laboratory result is not simply “the date of a civilisation.” Sample context, calibration and probability all matter.
Archaeogenetics Without the Headlines
Population genetics can reveal ancestry and movement, but it cannot directly read language, culture or identity from DNA.
How Credible Is India’s 7.8% GDP Growth Estimate?
India’s April–June 2026 growth estimate needs context: a new GDP series, revised comparisons, price adjustments and the difference between national output and household prosperity.
The Indian Economy: Scale, Structure and the Productivity Question
India is simultaneously a major services economy, an industrialising state and a country with a very large labour force still outside high-productivity formal employment.
Why Tamil Nadu Became One of India’s Most Industrialised States
Automotive clusters, diversified manufacturing, urban networks and human capital created an unusually broad industrial base.
India’s Education System: Expansion, Quality and the Skills Gap
Access has expanded dramatically, but learning outcomes, institutional quality and employability remain uneven across regions and social groups.
India’s R&D Challenge: From Engineering Talent to Research Intensity
A large engineering workforce and successful technology sectors have not yet translated into research intensity comparable with leading innovation economies.
Sri Lanka After the Crisis: Recovery Is Not the Same as Transformation
Stabilisation can restore basic macroeconomic functioning, but durable recovery requires productivity, exports, public-sector credibility and protection of household welfare.
Sri Lankan Education: A Strong Social Foundation Facing New Constraints
High historical literacy and broad access remain major strengths, while funding, university capacity, migration and labour-market alignment create pressure.
Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka: Two Development Paths Across a Narrow Sea
A structured comparison of industrialisation, human development, urban systems and exposure to external shocks.
India and China: The Manufacturing Gap Is About Systems, Not Wages Alone
Infrastructure, supplier density, logistics, capital formation, skills and scale interact to create manufacturing competitiveness.
Kerala and Sri Lanka: What Social Development Can Achieve Before High Income
Both cases show how literacy, health and public provision can advance ahead of very high per-capita income — while also creating new economic pressures.
South Asian Universities: From Mass Access to Research Capability
The region has expanded higher education rapidly; the next challenge is building institutions that combine teaching quality, research depth and academic freedom.
The Indian Ocean as a Historical System
South Asian history becomes clearer when coastlines are treated as connectors rather than edges.
How to Read an Ancient Inscription Without Overclaiming
Script, language, date, provenance and archaeological context are separate questions that should be answered separately.
Archaeology, Nationalism and the Discipline of Uncertainty
Ancient evidence is politically powerful precisely because the people who created it cannot correct our modern stories about them.
Beyond GDP: How to Judge Whether Development Is Improving Everyday Life
Growth matters, but households experience development through income, work, housing, education, health, prices and public services.
How to Read Education Statistics Without Being Misled
Enrolment, attendance, completion and learning measure different things. Good reporting does not substitute one for another.
Why South Asian Archaeology Needs Better Digital Public Archives
Excavation reports, photographs, plans, laboratory results and catalogues become far more valuable when they are searchable, linked and preserved.