until now historians and anthropologists believed that todas a tribal group in the higher altitudes of the nilgiris reached there about 2000 years ago a new study by indian institute of science bengaluru researchers shows the community was already settled there 35004000 years ago when a climate change occurred in southern indialatest research using radiocarbon dating presence of charcoal fungal spores associated with animal dung and steroids peculiar to human fecal matter proves the existence of humans at the higher elevation from 3500 years ago team head raman sukumar said the study was carried out at sandynallah in the nilgiris where samples of peat soil accumulation of partially decayed vegetation or organic matter showed the presence of domesticated animals and human life 3500 years ago when the climate was drier and extensive fires were recordedscientists infer that the todas who originally inhabited lower elevations with their buffalo herds most likely adapted to sharply drier climate conditions by migrating to cooler and wetter higher reaches with their livestockthe buffalotending pastoral community is widely believed to be the earliest people to move into the upper nilgiri plateau perhaps during the 1st century ad it remained relatively isolated until discovered during the early 19th century by the erstwhile british administration the higher slopes of the nilgiris above 2000m above sea level features a unique ecosystem of patches of tropical montane forests locally known as sholas paleoclimatic reconstruction using stable carbon isotope analysis of peat from highelevation valleys in the region suggests it had undergone phases of wet and arid climate broadly in tune with wellknown global climatic events since the last glacial maximum resulting in shifts in the relative dominance of mainly woody vegetation and herbs other than tropical grassesevidence from pollen studies also suggests presence of grassland and forest through moister and more arid phases in the nilgiris while these studies provided good understanding of past vegetation and associated climate in particular strength of monsoon the team didnt specifically investigate human ecology associated with these changes several other proxies such as macro and microcharcoal sediments in abundance as a record of fires including those of possible anthropogenic origin fungal spores associated with animal dung leaf wax lipids characteristic of different plant types and 100 steroid compounds indicative of animal and human faeces have been found and are useful to understand the relationship among climate vegetation and human presence said sukumar lipidbiomarkers powerful tools in resolving past plant or animal origin have been hardly explored in paleoecological research in india based mainly on linguistic affinities of the toda language with the common dravidian languages of southern india it was earlier suggested that the toda origin in the nilgiris is not more than 2000 years old the new study calls for fresh investigation