Sea travel was fraught with peril and danger in early historical and medieval times, and not surprisingly, from an early period, a saviour or saviouress from sea danger was part of the Indic cultural tradition. First, in Buddhism in the form of Avalokite?vara and T?r?, but later in Hinduism, the protective saviour deities emerged in the Indian Subcontinent, including in the eastern seaboard region of Odisha. The coastal shrines in the Indian Ocean World provided the cultural basis for the maritime transactions among the various regions of the Indian Ocean. The paper is an attempt to construct various coastal shrines in Odisha by analysing the historical-cultural context of their origin and growth. The paper uses archaeological, historical evidence, temple legend and local tradition to construct the maritime economic landscape of Odisha in the early historical and early medieval period, which includes accounting for the locations of ports on the riverine mouths. The location of these ports in the estuarine mouths or on the river banks is dependent on their hinterlands, and the paper analyses the role the goods and traders of Odisha played in the Indian Ocean trade. Given the dangers of sea voyages and belief in protective deities, the coastal establishments saw the emergence of coastal shrines in early historical and early medieval Odisha.

Keywords: Coastal shrines, Transnational networks, T?r? as Saviouress, Siddha Y?tr?, Mangal?.

Reconstructing an area's unwritten history and past cultures can be deduced from the systematic study of archaeological sites and material vestiges of the past. There has been limited research work undertaken in this outlook in Karbi Anglong district of Assam because of socio-political issues and the region’s remote, hilly environment. This research aims to unearth the archaeological resources from the western region of Karbi Anglong district and determine their relevance. Baolagog, Lembra and Umswai are the three villages where the fieldwork has been conducted. Field data have been gathered using archaeological explorations, and interview methods. The investigator encountered remnants of pottery and stone artifacts, especially celts. Potsherds were recovered on surface and in exposed sections which produced 195 number of ceramic sherds. Ethnoarchaeological methods including comparative analogy, petrographic examination, and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis were employed to evaluate ceramic sherds. Mineralogically similar composition is implied by the results of XRD analysis on samples obtained from both surface and exposed sections. Petrography has identified coarse particle mineralogy, added tempering materials and possible ceramic production processes. Typo-technological evaluation of ceramic sherds, along with existence of polished-stone artifacts (celts) and proximity of monolithic stone construction site provide a basis to investigate this situation ethnoarcheologically. Ceramic sherds and stone artifacts of the examined region; ancient monolithic alignments of stones, a historical form of subsistence; shifting agriculture; and continued utilization of clay vessels in ceremonial rituals by the local residents may be connected through time since a long antiquity. Therefore these elements have made it obvious that there is a basis to understand the area's possibility as a place of ancient habitations.

Keywords: Pottery, XRD, Petrography, Celt, Continuity.

This study presents a comprehensive archaeometallurgical analysis of selected metal artefacts excavated from the Early Iron Age levels at the site of Pachkhed, District Yavatmal, Maharashtra, India. Through a multi- nalytical approach employing X-ray Diffraction (XRD), X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) and Scanning Electron Microscopy with Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (SEM-EDS), we investigate the compositional, microstructural and mineralogical characteristics of an iron nail and a bronze bowl. The results confirm deliberate alloying practices, with the bronze object showing a Cu-Sn alloy composition (Sn ~51.77%, Cu ~37.59%) and the iron artefact dominated by ferric compounds, indicative of low-carbon wrought iron with significant surface oxidation. Stratigraphic and contextual data suggest long-term occupation at Pachkhed from the Early Iron Age through the late Medieval period. This study contributes to the growing corpus of metallurgical research in South Asia, situating Pachkhed within broader technological trajectories of protohistoric Deccan metallurgy.

Keywords: Archaeometallurgy, Early Iron Age, SEM-EDS, XRD, XRF, Deccan Metallurgy, Pachkhed.