Madhukar Keshav Dhavalikar

Madhukar Keshav Dhavalikar (M. K. Dhavalikar) is a notable Indian historian and archaeologist.

Life and career

Dhavalikar was born on 16 May 1930 at Patas, Bombay State (now Maharashtra). He received B.A. in Economics and Political Science in 1952 and M.A. in 1958. He received Ph.D. in Archaeology in 1964 from University of Poona for work in ancient Indian Culture and Archaeology,^[1]

He served the Archaeological Survey of India as Technical Assistant from 1953 to 1965. He was a Lecturer in Ancient Indian History Culture and Archaeology at the Nagpur University from 1965 to 1967. He served Deccan College, Pune, as Reader in Ancient Indian History Culture and Archaeology from 1967 to 1982, and as Professor from 1982 to 1990. He held the positions of Joint-Director (1982–1985) and Director (1985–1990).^[1]

Along with Z. D. Ansari, he conducted excavations at Kayatha during 1967-68.^[2] Dhavalikar dated the discovered site to a period spanning from 2400 BCE to 2000 BCE (though Gregory Possehl places it between 2200 BCE and 2000 BCE).^[3]

Honours

Dhavalikar was awarded the fellowship of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (2010), and the Ravindranath Tagore Fellowship in Cultural Research by the Ministry of Culture, Government of India (2010). He received India's fourth highest civilian award, Padma Shri in 2011.^[4]

Publications

• The Aryans: Myth and Archaeology 2007
• Archaeology of Western India 2003
• Environment and Culture: a Historical Perspective 2002
• Historical archaeology of India 1999
• Indian Protohistory 1997
• Kuntasi, a Harappan Emporium on West Coast 1996 {Dhavalikar M.K., Raval M.R., and Chitalwala Y.M.}
• Cultural Imperialism: Indus Civilization in Western India 1995
• The First Farmers of the Deccan 1988
• Excavations at Inamgaon Volume 1, Part 1 1988 {Dhavalikar M.K., Sankalia H.D., and Ansari Z.D.}
• Studies in Indian Archaeology 1985 {Sankalia H.D., Deo S.B., and Dhavalikar M.K.}
• Late Hinayana Caves of Western India 1984
• Excavations at Kayatha 1975 {Ansari Z.D. and Dhavalikar M.K.}

References