While studying the sepulchral and nonsepulchral monuments of this period, at a first glance one comes across variety of monuments that is quite bewildering. Attempts to evolve a suitable classifica-tory system for incorporating all the known burial types lead the earlier researchers to recognize five basic types, namely pit burials, urn and sarcophagi burials, rock-cut burial chambers, cist burials, and stone alignments. To this list were added some more types such as dolmen, menhir, topi-kal, and kudai-kal.
However, ignoring some of the minor variations in the construction methods and by taking into account instead the basic concepts of the nature of the tomb itself, the list can be contracted still further, and can be grouped under the following two broad categories: (1) sepulchral monuments, and (2) nonsepulchral monuments. The first category is essentially a burial proper, whereas the second can be considered as commemorative or memorial in nature. Within the ambit of these two main categories, the following classification may help understand the basic types along with their numerous subvarieties (Table 1 And Figures 1-13); and, if new varieties are brought to light, these can also be accommodated within this main classificatory system.
The mutual influence of those basic types on each other in certain architectural features such as passage, capstone, porthole, and even in the use of a nonsepulchral monument such as a menhir is certainly evident. While it has to be conceded that there are difficulties in explaining the specific socio-religious concepts governing these four basic types, it may be noted that variations do occur in these basic types because of spatiotemporal factors: this was but natural since it depended on the modulations in socio-religious expressions.
World History
