History and archaeology have become part of dynamic, active public discourse in more recent times, with the developments of heritagization, museumization, IT revolution and social media interventions. These subjects emerged as professional disciplines in South Asia with the combination of theoretical advancements and debates, social and community engagements and field-based investigations by innumerable researchers, fieldworkers, antiquarians and public historians/archaeologists in the twentieth century. Ideas from these disciplines have shaped the making of modern and contemporary India in the colonial and post-colonial contexts. Twenty-one research articles in this book, presented to one of the foremost archaeologists of our times, Professor K. Paddayya, who has significantly contributed to the advancement of archaeological theory and research, examine South Asian history from a cross-disciplinary and pluralistic perspective. The articles deliberate on the material culture and technological formations and the dynamics of prehistoric hunter-gatherers to the food-producing Neolithic economies. They dwell on the material culture of the Harappan civilisation to the concepts of “rural” and “urban” in medieval historical contexts. They also concentrate on a nuanced discussion on the megalithic settlements and funerary practices, and the second urbanisation, cities, ports, and long-distance trade. The papers explore diverse themes from challenging the opinion that Ayodhyā was not a real city to understanding the political nuances of how heritage – tangible and intangible – is constructed. This book takes on many important issues, including curation of heritage, archaeological theory and praxis, meanings and contexts of rock art and terracotta sculptures, and morphological study of Cercopithecidae remains from Late Pleistocene-Early Holocene Sri Lanka. These articles, based on new data, fresh interpretations, and engaging discussion, make the book an important contribution to the South Asian past and a fitting tribute to the academic contributions of Professor K. Paddayya.

V. Selvakumar has researched on prehistory, early history, heritage management and Indian Ocean interactions. He is a faculty member in the Department of Maritime History and Marine Archaeology, and the coordinator of the Centre for Indian Ocean Studies at Tamil University, Thanjavur, India.
S.K. Aruni has researched early history, medieval history, local history and archaeology of South India. He is Deputy Director at the Southern Regional Centre of the Indian Council of Historical Research, Bangalore, India.
Hemant Dave has researched ancient Indian textual traditions and archaeology, historiography, historical linguistics, and Sanskrit aesthetics. He is a professor of history at Sardar Patel University, Vallabh Vidyanagar, Gujarat, India.