TAMIL NADU, INDIA—According to a report in The Hindu, J. Ranjith of the Tamil Nadu Department of Archaeology and his colleagues have discovered a total of 250 cairn circles in southern India’s trade and industrial center of Kodumanal, which was inhabited from the fifth through the first centuries B.C. Inside most of the megalithic circles, Ranjith said the excavations have revealed chambered burial cists and three or four pots and bowls. Ten pots and bowls, however, were recently unearthed in a circle made of boulders and rectangular-shaped cists made of stone slabs. Each of these cists measures about 20 feet long and six and one-half feet wide. The grave could have belonged to a village head or the head of the community, Ranjith explained, because the size of the boulders, each facing east and west, are bigger than the boulders found in the other circles. The pots and bowls, once filled with grain, may have been placed outside the chambers for use in the afterlife, he added. Ranjith said the excavation team members have also recovered an animal skull that may have belonged to a wolf or a dog; beads; gold pieces; needles; copper; a workshop with mud walls; grooved tiles in a trench; pieces of beryl, carnelian, quartz, and jasper; and texts written in Tamil Brahmi. To read about 300 rock paintings recently discovered in Madhya Pradesh, go to "Around the World: India."