Madhukar Keshav Dhavalikar (M. K. Dhavalikar; 16 May 1930 – 27 March 2018) was an Indian historian and archaeologist.

Life and career

Dhavalikar was born in 1930 at Patas,

Bombay State Bombay State was a large Indian state created at the time of India's Independence, with other regions being added to it in the succeeding years. Bombay Presidency (roughly equating to the present-day Indian state of Maharashtra, excluding So ...

(now

Maharashtra Maharashtra (; , abbr. MH or Maha) is a state in the western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. Maharashtra is the second-most populous state in India and the second-most populous country subdi ...

). 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 Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU), formerly the University of Poona, is a collegiate public state university located in the city of Pune, India. It was established in 1949, and is spread over a campus in the neighbourhood of Ganes ...

for work in ancient Indian Culture and Archaeology, He served the

Archaeological Survey of India The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) is an Indian government agency that is responsible for archaeological research and the conservation and preservation of cultural historical monuments in the country. It was founded in 1861 by Alexand ...

as Technical Assistant from 1953 to 1965. He was a lecturer in Ancient Indian History Culture and Archaeology at the

Nagpur University Rashtrasant Tukadoji Maharaj Nagpur University (RTMNU), formerly Nagpur University, is a public state university located in Nagpur, Maharashtra. It is one of India's oldest universities, as well as the second oldest in Maharashtra. It is named ...

from 1965 to 1967. He served Deccan College,

Pune Pune (; ; also known as Poona, ( the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million As of 2021, Pune Metropolitan Region is the largest i ...

, as Reader in Ancient Indian History Culture and Archaeology from 1967 to 1980, and as Professor from 1980 to 1990. He held the positions of Joint-Director (1982–1985) and Director (1985–1990). Along with Z. D. Ansari, he conducted excavations at

Kayatha Kaytha or Kayatha is a village and an archaeological site in the Ujjain district of Madhya Pradesh, India, in the Tarana tehsil, near the city of Ujjain, on the banks of Choti-Kali Sindh river. In 1964, V. S. Wakankar discovered the archeologic ...

during 1967-68. Dhavalikar dated the discovered site to a period spanning from 2400 BCE to 2000 BCE (though

Gregory Possehl Gregory Louis Possehl (July 21, 1941 – October 8, 2011) was a professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania and curator of the Asian Collections at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. ...

places it between 2200 BCE and 2000 BCE). The master archaeologist undertook excavations at Paunar (Maha-rashtra), Kayatha (Madhya Pradesh), Guhati (Assam), Inamgaon (Mah.), Hoggadehalli (Karnataka), Prabhas Patan and Kuntasi (Gujarat), Ape-gaon, Kandhar, Kaothe and Walki (Mah.), which encompassed the past from Harappan to medieval history. (Sites are cited chronologically.) All these excavations were followed by comprehensively published reports, some of which are recognised as classics of the field. (Shreenand L. Bapat, Obituary Notice, Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Vol. 95, pages 173-175.) Fifteen researchers were fortunate to receive their doctoral degrees under his guidance. Prof. Dhavalikar was elected a Trustee of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in 1987. He was unanimously re-elected five times and served in that office till 2013.

Honours

A number of honours were rightly conferred on Prof. Dhavalikar. He was awarded the fellowship of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (2010) and the first Tagore National Fellowship of the Govern-ment of India in the same year. In 2011 he received Padmaśrī, the fourth highest civilian award of the country. The Indian History Congress elected him its General President in 1999. He was a member of the Culture Group of the Planning Commission, and member of a number of committees and cultural delegations of the Government of India. His consultancy was sought by various apex bodies like the ASI, National Museum, National Institute of Design, Chhatrapati Shivaji Vastu-sangrahalaya (Mumbai), etc. He was invited by several institutions of international and national repute to deliver learned lectures.

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 (Co-authors: M. R. Raval and Y. M. Chitalwala)
Cultural Imperialism: Indus Civilization in Western India
1995
The First Farmers of the Deccan
1988
Excavations at Inamgaon Volume 1, Part 1
1988 (Co-authors: H. D. Sankalia and Z. D. Ansari}
Studies in Indian Archaeology
1985 (Co-authors: H. D. Sankalia and S. B. Deo)
Late Hinayana Caves of Western India
1984
Excavations at Kayatha
1975 (Co-author: Z. D. Ansari)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dhavalikar, Madhukar Keshav 1930 births 2018 deaths 20th-century Indian archaeologists 21st-century Indian archaeologists Rashtrasant Tukadoji Maharaj Nagpur University faculty Savitribai Phule Pune University faculty Recipients of the Padma Shri in other fields Scientists from Nagpur Historians of India Indian social sciences writers Historians of Indian art