Megalithic site at Hirebenkal(Karnatak)

Dated: 800BCE
An unusual find is a stone kettledrum on a 10metres (33 ft) high
boulder. The boulder is hemispherical in shape with a diameter of 2 metres (6 ft 7 in) and standing 1.5 metres (4 ft 11 in) in height. The
boulder, when struck
with a wooden hammer, produces sounds which are heard up to 1 kilometre (0.62 mi)
away.
The setting for the
approximately 400 megalithic monuments convey the feeling of a ghost town. Their structures are varied in shape and size. There are clusters of dolmens, three sided chambers with capstones forming the roof. The small dolmens are 50–100 centimetres (20–39 in), while the larger ones measure up to 3 metres (9.8 ft) height. The buried and semi-buried dolmens are categorized as cists and dolmenoid cists, and are arranged in circular layouts. Most of them have collapsed. The dolmens with round portholes give the
appearance of dwellings with windows but they are funerary structures.
These dolmens flank both sides of the main
street. Pit circles and oblong chambers covered with gable stone roofs have also been found. The dolmenoid cists are in several shapes and sizes.
Those in an oblong
shape are discerned to have been built with packing of rubble stones at the ground level. A circular enclosure is
noted. Around these structures there is a pit filled with layers of earth. In rock
shelters, there are paintings of people dancing, hunting, and
holding weapons. There are also geometric and mystic designs of deer, peacocks, antelopes, humped bulls, horses and cows.
In this area, the caves were either residences or places of worship; they contained cave paintings in red ocher colour which corroborates the existences of the funerary structures nearby.