Archaeologist and pre-historian of international repute and former director of the Deccan College, Professor VN Misra, passed away on October 31 due to old-age related problems. He was 80.
Life of VN Misra:-
Hailing from Uttar Pradesh, Misra joined Deccan College after completing his studies from Lucknow. After studying Sanskrit and Anthropology, he received guidance in archaeology from Prof HD Sankalia, who is considered to have pioneered archaeological excavation techniques in India.He was a skilled teacher. He was soft spoken but never compromised on quality.
Awards and Achievements:-
- Among his notable achievements are excavations at the world heritage site of Bhimbetka in Madhya Pradesh and the 6,000-year-old site of Balathal in Rajasthan, considered the turning points in history of ancient India.
- Misra was the recipient of the prestigious VS Wakankar Award by the Madhya Pradesh government with for his contribution to pre-history.
- He had also founded a dedicated society for pre-historic studies in 1977 and started an international research journal – Man and Environment, which he edited from it’s inception till his death.
His entire life was archaeology and he is so well known and respected that any conversation with any archaeologist in the world has to have a reference to his work. He established the framework on which research in pre-historic India is currently going on. Most importantly, his approach to villagers and tribals and ability to extract information from them which they wouldn’t share with anyone, which later enabled him to build a picture of the past, was a learning lesson.This ability enabled him to study several tribal and nomadic communities spread all over India.
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Archaeologists have made which startling discovery at Pylos, Greece on 28th October 2015?
