PrefaceAcknowledgementsIntroduction1. Early Social Formations: A Historiographic Review2. Semiotics of Ancient Tamil Poetics: A Historiographic Consideration3. Forms of Production and Forces of Change in Ancient Tamil Society4. Early Iron Age Economy: Problems of Agrarian Expansion in Tamilakam5. From Clan and Lineage to Hereditary Occupations and Caste in the Tamil Macro Region6. Towards a New Discourse: Discursive Processes in Early South India7. Tribes, Forest, and Social Formation in Early South India8.

Writing, Literacy and Social Formations in the Tamil South9. Spread of Writing in the Tamil South and its Social Implications10. Transition of Social Formation from Ancient to Early Medieval in the Tamil South11. Historical Antecedents of the State Formation in the Deep South12. Aspects of the Reservoir System of Irrigation in the Pandya Country13. Pre-historic Life in Southern Western Ghats: Interpreting Rock-art14. Aspects of Great Transformation in Ancient Kerala15. The Formation of Caste Society in Kerala: Historical Antecedents16.

Temples as Sites of Social and Religious Interaction17. The Course of Social Historiography of KeralaIndex.