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Recent publication by Noboru KarashimaA new article by Noboru Karashima  "Epigraphical Study of Ancient and Medieval Villages in the Tamil Country" was recently published in Review of Agrarian Studies, Volume 1, Number 2 (July-December, 2011).Abstract: In­scrip­tions on stones or cop­per-plates, which occur in sub­stan­tial num­bers, are the basic source-ma­te­r­ial for the an­cient and me­dieval his­tory of India, as much of India lacks his­tory books com­piled in these pe­ri­ods. For pre-mod­ern vil­lage stud­ies as well, there­fore, we have to de­pend on in­scrip­tions.In this paper I ex­plain how the re­mains of in­scrip­tions can be used for vil­lage stud­ies by re­fer­ring to my ex­am­i­na­tion of Tamil in­scrip­tions of the Chola pe­riod (10th to 13th cen­turies). Through their ex­am­i­na­tion I have at­tempted to clar­ify the changes that oc­curred in the land­hold­ing sys­tem in the mid­dle Chola pe­riod, and the great so­cial change and up­heaval that these rep­re­sented.I also demon­strate the im­por­tance of sta­tis­ti­cal analy­sis of in­scrip­tional data, of tech­niques that I in­tro­duced into this field of study. Many in­ter­est­ing and im­por­tant fea­tures of an­cient and me­dieval vil­lages can be known from in­scrip­tions, in­clud­ing in­for­ma­tion on vil­lage types, cul­ti­va­tion prac­tices, taxes on vil­lages, and the peo­ple who lived in the vil­lages.&#160;The online version of the Review of Agrarian Studies is available for free at www.ras.org.in or www.reviewofagrarianstudies.org.