Shanti Pappu
Sharma Centre for Heritage Education India,
Shanti Pappu is the Founder/Secretary of the Sharma Centre for Heritage Education (SCHE; established 1999), India, an Institute committed to both research in archaeology and public outreach. She specializes in prehistoric archaeology, beginning with cultures marking the earliest Palaeolithic occupation of India (beginning around 1.5 million years ago) and extending up to periods marked by transitions to Neolithic agro-pastoral communities. Her interests lie in prehistory and quaternary studies, history of archaeology, ethnoarchaeology, and experimental archaeology and museology. She obtained her PhD from the Deccan College, Pune, India. She has over 20 years of experience in prehistoric archaeology. She strongly believes that research, especially a less well-known field like prehistory, must be complemented by public awareness and outreach. Along with Dr. Kumar Akhilesh, she is responsible for developing the public archaeology and outreach programs at the SCHE and in developing the children’s museum. Through in-house and outreach programs and travelling workshops, the team addresses school children and teachers, university students and faculty and interested local communities on aspects of archaeology. Workshops for children and teachers are conducted in English and several Indian languages, and comprise innovative teaching methods to bring alive the past. The Centre’s public outreach programs seek to create an interest in Indian archaeology, that serves as a foundation for devising sustainable goals for heritage education, management and conservation.
Session 1E: Public lecture
Umesh Wagahmare, President, Indian Academy of Sciences
The many layers of Indian prehistory: From research to public outreach
The complex and multilayered story of the earliest prehistoric occupation of South Asia has generated vigorous debates on cultural evolution, population migration, and adaptation to past climatic changes. Here, the earliest processes of cultural evolution in South Asia beginning in the lower Palaeolithic, more than a million years ago, and culminating with the transition to agro-pastoral modes of life in the ‘Neolithic’ will be discussed. These processes are situated within the context of past environmental changes and debates on population migrations out of Africa. The evolution of conceptual approaches and nomenclatures in Indian prehistory, with implications for ways in which the past is interpreted will be highlighted. These issues are situated in the context of our long-term research in Tamil Nadu, with a focus on the sites of Attirampakkam, Sendrayanpalayam, and others. Prehistoric sites in India are rapidly vanishing under the onslaught of infrastructure development and lack of awareness of what these sites comprise. The urgent need for awareness creation and conservation to protect this heritage for the future and present sustainable plans for achieving the same will be discussed.