ABSTRACT
A total of 134 settlements were documented at the Site Group level during the survey. When viewed at a Site Cluster level, this figure increases to 161 to account for Site Groups that contain more than one settlement area (Table 13.1; Figure 13.1). Of these Site Clusters, 82 survive as mounds formed from denuded mud structures (Plates 5, 9) and 44 as clusters of sandstone buildings on the lower slopes of hills (Plate 8 ; Table 13.1; Figure 13.1). Also included in the overall figure are 30 modern villages where, in addition to sculptures or temple fragments, no settlement mounds or evidence for residential buildings were recorded, but may nevertheless overlie earlier remains. There is also a fourth category that I refer to as ‘memory site’. These sites are commemorated locally as ancient or ‘ancestral’ settlements, but in all five cases, no supporting archaeological evidence was identified. 1 As suggested in chapter 8, this belief appears to stem from assumptions regarding the so-called ‘archaeological’ character of material found in the immediate vicinity of these sites.
