According to Dr. Nagaswamy, Tamil scholar Francois Gros of the Ecole Francais Extreme Orient, Pondicherry, suggested the study of all the Karur finds and assessment of their archaeological significance, along with the role of Karur in the history of Tamil civilisation. The studies clearly proved that the presence of these foreigners had left a far deeper impact on the economy, defence, arts and architecture than imagined earlier.

Of the identified 429 signs, “a man with jar cup”, a symbol unique to the Indus civilisation and other compound letters testified to remnants of the Harappan culture, spanning from 2300 BC to 1700 BC, in South India, Mr. Varier, who led the excavation at the caves told PTI.The “man-with-the-jar” symbol, an integral remnant commonly traced in parts where the Indus Valley civilisation existed, has even more similarities than those traced in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, he said.

In the 18th century, when prehistory had not been known and the western intellect was struggling under the burden of biblical chronology, either the world outside Christendom had to be fitted within the scheme or the scheme itself had to be thrown overboard. Sir William Jones was trying to vindicate the “short chronology” of the Bible, with creation located some four millennia before Christ, in opposition to the Enlightenment tirade against the Bible and what it represented. Thus, an ethnology deriving the peoples of the world from the children of Noah, a philology starting with the tower of Babel and a cartography derived from Ptolemaic notions tried to fit the new information into its mould — however hard that was.