Ashmounds were traditionally interpreted through mythological frameworks, being regarded as the burnt remains of
rakshasas such as Vali, Bakasura, or Hidimba. The earliest scholarly accounts of ashmounds were made by Colonel
Colin Mackenzie and
Thomas J. Newbold in 1836. Newbold disputed his colleague
Prinsep's view that the ash deposits were the product of ancient volcanic activity. Through his study of the ashmounds at Kugpal and Budigunta, Newbold instead proposed that the mounds were the result of human activity. Further investigations were carried out by Taylor in 1851 and 1853 during his documentation of the megaliths of the Shorapur region, in which he attributed both the ashmounds and associated stone alignments to the Iron Age. Cavelly Venkata Lachmia, a colleague of Colin Mackenzie and president of the Madras Hindu Literary Society, recorded comparable sites across Mysore state, including Budihal and Buditippa, noting that the prefix būdi carries the meaning of "ash" in the local language. In the mid-twentieth century,
Frank Raymond Allchin provided the first detailed stratigraphic and radiocarbon chronology for ashmound formations. He identified regular linear postholes along the mounds and argued that they represented seasonal cattle camps in which pens were constructed using fence posts. Faunal assemblages are dominated by cattle, buffalo, and pig, though whether the latter were wild or domesticated remains difficult to determine. In 2024, a few Neolithic ashmounds in
Ballari were destroyed in the process of development projects due to historical ignorance. == References ==