Long before L&T, Kirloskar and TVS factories, Rhinos roamed near today’s Coimbatore thousands of years ago

Long before Coimbatore became a major industrial hub known for companies like L&T, Kirloskar and TVS, rhinoceros roamed the foothills of the Western Ghats near the city around 3,500 years ago, archaeologists have found. Bone fragments discovered at a neolithic site near Coimbatore show that the animal once lived far beyond its present-day habitat in eastern and northeastern India, a TOI report stated.

Archaeologists identified four bone fragments, two metacarpals and two carpals of the foot of an Indian rhino, at Molapalayam, a neolithic site near Coimbatore. The discovery came during two seasons of excavation carried out in 2021 and 2024.

Excavations at the site yielded a large collection of bone fragments belonging to 28 animal species, including the Indian rhino, offering rare evidence of the region’s ancient wildlife.


“The anatomical features of the bones match the rhino bones available in the reference collection,” said Abhayan G S, a faculty member at the department of archaeology, University of Kerala, who studied the samples with research scholar Ajith M.

Third rhino discovery in South India

This is the third time rhino remains have been found in south India. Earlier discoveries include bone fragments from Payyampalli in Tirupattur district and a fragmented skull of a fossilised rhino from Sathankulam in Tuticorin district.

“This is a significant find as rhinos survived up to the middle of the second millennium BCE. According to the current zoogeography, the animal is restricted to Assam and northeastern plains of India,” Abhayan said.

What the find says about ancient landscapes

Experts say the presence of rhinos suggests that the foothills of the Western Ghats once supported vast grasslands and marshy areas, very different from today’s urban and industrial landscape around Coimbatore.

The Indian rhino depends heavily on grasslands for survival, requiring large stretches of open land for food.

“The foothills of the Western Ghats might have had grassland, as a single rhino requires many square kilometres of grassland for food,” said zooarchaeologist Pramod Joglekar, a retired professor of archaeology at Deccan College in Pune.

Rhino remains found across India

Findings from other parts of India suggest that rhinos once lived across a much wider geographical range.

“In Gujarat and Haryana, too, we found bone remains of the Indian rhino from the Harappan period,” Joglekar said.

“We also found bone remains in Odisha. It shows that rhinos were once spread across the Indian subcontinent,” he added.

Life at Molapalayam thousands of years ago

Archaeologist V Selvakumar of the department of maritime history and maritime archaeology at Tamil University, Thanjavur, who excavated the Molapalayam site, presented a paper on the discovery at an international symposium on recent scientific studies in archaeology of Tamil Nadu held in Madurai on Saturday.

“A faunal analysis reveals that people who lived here constituted a pastoral community that reared cattle, sheep and goat. They also hunted animals such as deer and antelope. Their food also included a diverse range of small millets and pulses,” Selvakumar said.

Researchers Sathish Naik and Aditya from Deccan College identified plant remains from the site.

Analysis of bone fragments from the site revealed 28 animal species, including cattle, buffalo, goat, sheep, pig and dog, along with wild animals such as nilgai, blackbuck, four-horned antelope, gazelle, chital and sambar deer, besides the Indian rhino.

Radiocarbon dating places the Molapalayam site between 1,600 BCE and 1,400 BCE, showing that long before factories, highways and industries shaped Coimbatore, the land supported rhinos and rich grassland ecosystems.