This book present archaeological history from the palaeolithic beginnings to c.AD 300’ when early historic India assumed its basic from. It lucidly reconstructs the historical development of human-natural resource interaction in the subcontinents using maps, illustration, and tables. The second edition update the research to include new ideas and discoveries – of tools from the palaeolithic and mesolitshic ages and human fossil finds – in Indian archeology between 1998 and 2008. This comprehension and up to date book will be an essential reading for students and teachers of archaeology and ancient Indian history.
Dilip K. Chakrabarti is Emeritus professor of South Asian Archaeology and Senior Fellow, McDonald Institute for Archaeology Research, Cambridge University.
The Indian subcontinent has been an area for archaeological research for over 200 years. Since Independence the pace of this research has increased manifold, and despite some major lacunae, we have reached a stage of knowledge where it is possible to offer a connected account of the history of prehistoric and early historic India primarily, if not exclusively, on the basis of archaeology. The present volume aims to do that. It is much more than a compendium of ancient Indian archaeological data, bringing out, as it does, the flow of 'India's grassroots archaeological history in all its continuities and diversities. Beginning with the first stone tools in the subcontinent, the book weaves its archaeological history in all the areas and multiple strands of development till the early historic foundations. Among other things, it discusses the basic significance of Indian prehistoric studies, the variegated pattern of the beginning of village life in India, the various issues related to . , the Indus or Harappan civilization and how the transition to, and consolidation of, the early historical India took place.
This was written in the academic year 1997-8 and the formal invitation to do so came from OUP, New Delhi. I would like to thank them for this privilege.
Dr Sylvia Lachrnann kindly found time to read all its chapters, some of which were also read by Reverend G. Seevalee, Christopher Bayliss and Corinna Bower. My thanks are due to all of them. Dr Nayanjot Lahiri gave me a copy of Indian Archaeology-A Review, 1992-93 and helped in other ways.
The 'India' of this book is the Sanskrit Bharatavarsha, the subcontinent as a whole. In a major Bengali literary piece-Aranyak ('forest-dweller')- the author, Bibhuti Bhusan Bandopadhyay, enters into an imaginary dialogue with Bhanumati, a tribal princess who lived in a forest village called Chakmakitola.
Have you heard the name of Bharatavarsha? Bhanumati nodded to say that she had not heard the name. She had never been out of Chakmakitola. In which direction could one find Bharatavarsha?
If at the end of this book one is left with a sense of the archaeological direction to Bharatavarsha, I shall consider this humble endeavour of mine successful. . This book is dedicated to Mr v.c. Joshi, who played a significant role in the development of archaeological research in the subcontinent in the 1980s. As a consultant of the Ford Foundation, Delhi, he was instrumental in shaping the Foundations' interest in South Asian archaeology. In India this interest led, among, 9Jh.el:.things, to the sanction of major grants to the Indian Society for-Prehistoric and Quaternary Studies for its journal Man and Environment and the. archaeology sections of the Banaras Hindu University, Deccan College, Pune, and M.S. University, Baroda. In Bangladesh, the Foundation initiated the process of establishing archaeology in one of the universities, with Mr Joshi closely working with Bangladeshi colleagues. Those of us who came in contact with him will always remember his kindness and grace and deep commitment to duty.
There are two reasons why a historical study of ancient Indian cannot realize its full potential in the basis of textual sources alone. First, the sources which have been used, beginning with the Rigveda, were not meant to be historical sources, and whatever historical information has been gleaned from them is not free questions regarding their chronology, geographical applicability and even content. Except for the history of the king of Kashmir, written by kalhana in the twelfth century, there is no proper historical chronicle dating from the ancient period of Indian history. As H.C. Raychaudhuri wrote: ‘No Thucydides or Tacitus has left for posterity a genuine history of Ancient India.’ K.A.N. Sastri wrote of ‘the utter impossibility of basing any part of the ancient history of India solely, or even primarily, upon literary evidence.’
The problem of source is not limited to the texts. It affects in good measure inscription, coins, sculpture, painting and architecture as well, although in these cases geography and chronology are not among the problems. The number of early inscription is severely limited. They increase in number only in the tenth-twelfth centuries, more in the south than in the rest of the subcontinent. But inscriptions are not textual compositions, and like other textual composition, devote a lot space to conventional descriptions rather than to the first place. Coins come mostly from ‘hoards’—accidental, non-contextual discoveries which very often end up with the coin-dealers. A framework of the study of coins has no doubt emerged, but on many occasions the study of ancient India coins has not been to able to proceed beyond a study of their design. The same is true of the specimen of art and architecture. They are concerned much more with individual authorship and patronage, precisely the issue which would have made them exciting as historical documents.
Over the last two centuries or more, scholars have certainly mapped out the different areas of ancient India history, but in many cases this has been no more than a preliminary sketch of the terrain. It is doubtful I f they could do any better. When one remember that there is no fine chronological grouping of the early Buddhist literature and that the whole of it can be out only in a board period from the sixth to the second century BC, the generalized version of ‘Buddhist India’. Further, because the geographical perspective of these texts is limited mainly to the middle Ganga plain, this generalized version can apply not to India as a whole but only to the region which it invokes. This situation is true not merely of Buddhist India but virtually of all the epochs and geographical regions that we can think of in the context of ancient India. In fact, behind its academic curtain, there are vast stretches of darkness and too many loose ends. Under the circumstances, the pioneering modern historians of ancient India could only lay the outline of the subject, moving from epoch to epoch and giving us a general scaffolding which somehow holds together. It could also be only a story of historical development in a more or less single line which, in fact had the effect of blurring the multiple regional strands of India’s historical growth, at least for the early period.
Such basic limitation of the available sources cannot be wished away, nor can the situation improve by rephrasing the historical question in the language of the social sciences. Whatever cloak a modern historian of ancient India may wear—that of an old-fashioned or of a modern social scientist—one cannot shed the burden of proof , and historical proof, as well all know, lies basically in the sources.
Archaeology can greatly expand the nature of the sources in the context of ancient India. Even in the areas with a much larger mass of detailed and rigorous textual documentation, archaeological research often leads to hitherto unperceived dimensions of the historical landscape. In the case of ancient India , where the basic quantum and the rigour of textual documentation are comparatively limited, archaeological research becomes more than ordinarily significant.
Archaeology can also greatly change the nature of historical questions, and it is here that the second reason of the significant of archaeology in ancient Indian historical research is rooted. Although modern archaeology is not afraid of handing multitude of issue ranging from environment and subsistence to symbolism and cognition, it is primarily in the reconstruction if the story of man-land relationship through the ages that subject excels . what we want to emphasize in the context of the ancient history of such a vast land mass as the subcontinent that the framework of a past acceptable to all segments of its population can emerge.
The past is a hotly contested arena of modern times, and the fact that it has become so is in a large measure due to a sense of monolithic, racist past that we have inherited as a colonial legacy in a large part of the world. In the case of India, one immediately realize that since beginning of research on the history of ancient India, the story of its conquest by a carefully constructed ‘superior’ recial and linguistic group called the Aryans has been an overwhelmingly dominant theme and that this conquest and the subsequent assimilation of the various indigenous strands of culture by the conquering Aryans have been said to constitute the very basis of ancient Indian society and history. Even if this theme and approach are true—and we shall see in a later section that they are not –why should those who are considered beyond the Aryans pale accept this reconstruction of the past as their own?
Preface | xv | |
I | INTRODUCTION | 1 |
ANCIENT IND~ 'THE IMPOI«ANCE OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL | 1 | |
EVIDENCE | ||
THE DEVELOPMENT OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH IN THE SUBCONTIN | 4 | |
Early Notices | 4 | |
The Middle of the Eighteenth Century | 4 | |
The Establishment of the Asiatic Society in Calcutta | 5 | |
The 1830s | 7 | |
Alexander Cunningham and His Successors till 1902 | 8 | |
The Role of Indians in Indian Archaeological Studies till the Close of the Nineteenth Century | 10 | |
Some Operative Forces in the Study of Ancient India | 10 | |
Indian Prehistoric Studies till the End of the Nineteenth Century | 12 | |
Indian Archaeology at the Turn of the Twentieth Century and the Impact of lord Curzon | 12 | |
The John Marshall Era in Indian Archaeology, 1902-44 | 14 | |
Mortimer Wheeler and the Archaeological Survey, 1944-48 | 15 | |
Archaeology in Post-Independence India | 16 | |
AIMS AND STRUCTURE | 19 | |
THE LAND MASS | 20 | |
Geographical Preliminarie | 20 | |
Geographical Issues | 24 | |
India in Relation to the Rest of Asia and Africa | 24 | |
Frontiers and Boundaries | 26 | |
India as a Geographical Entity | 28 | |
Major Geographical Lineaments of Indian History and Archaeology | 29 | |
Areas of Attraction, Relative Isolation and Isolation: a Critique of the Idea | 30 | |
PEOPLES AND LANGUAGES: THE BASIC CLASSIFICATORY FRAMEWORKS | 30 | |
Recent Approach of the Anthropological Survey of India | 31 | |
The Classificatory Systems based on the Concept of Race | 34 | |
CONCLUDING REMARKS | 39 | |
II | THE PALAEOLITHIC CONTEXT | 41 |
RESEARCH BACKGROUND | 41 | |
SKELETAL EVIDENCE | 48 | |
THE EARLIEST DATES of PALAEOLITHIC TOOLS IN THE SUBCONTINENT | 51 | |
DISTRIBUTION, STRATIGRAPHY, CLIMATE | 54 | |
Preliminary Issues | 54 | |
Regional Survey | 58 | |
CHRONOLOGY | 74 | |
CULTURAL EVIDENCE | 75 | |
Preliminary Remarks | 75 | |
Beyond Tools | 78 | |
Ethnographic Approach | 86 | |
THE EVIDENCE OF ART (? | 88 | |
CONCLUDING REMARKS | 89 | |
III | THE MESOLITHIC HORIZON AND ASSOCIATED ROCK ART | 91 |
THE CONCEPT OF A MESOLITHIC LEVEL AND ITS DISTRIBUTION | 92 | |
CLIMATE | 95 | |
CHRONOLOGY | 98 | |
CULTURAL EVIDENCE | 100 | |
Bagor, Phase I | 100 | |
Adamgarh | 101 | |
Baghor II | 101 | |
The Excavated Sites in Uttar Pradesh: Chopani Mando, Sarai Nahar Rai, Mahadaha and Damdama | 102 | |
Paisra | 109 | |
ASSOCIATED ROCK ART | 110 | |
CONCLUDING REMARKS | 116 | |
IV | THE GROWTH OF VILLAGES: FROM BALUCHISTAN TO HARYANA AND GUJARAT | 117 |
THE MOUNTAINOUS RIM IN THE NORTH-WEST: BALUCHISTAN | 117 | |
The Northern Part of the Kachhi Plain: Mehrgarh | 117 | |
The Quetta Valley: Kite Gul Mohammad and Damb Sadaat | 126 | |
The Zhob-Loralai Area: the Rana Ghundai Sequence | 128 | |
The Kalat Plateau: Anjira and Sia Damb in the Sohrab Area | 130 | |
The Khozdar Area: Nal | 131 | |
The Kulli Culture of Kolwa and the Area around Bela: Niai Buthi, Nindowari and Edith Shahr Complex | 133 | |
The Coastal Plain of Sonmiani Bay: Bala Kot | 134 | |
The Turbat Oasis in the Kej Valley: Miri Qalat and Shahi Tump | 135 | |
Early Village Cultures of Baluchistan | 136 | |
THE MOUNTAINOUS RIM IN THE NORTH-WEST: BANNU | 136 | |
THE WESTERN FRINGE OF THE INDUS-HAKRA ALLUVIUM: THE GOMAL V ALLEY | 138 | |
THE WESTERN FRINGE OF THE INDUS-HAKRA ALLUVIUM: KIRTHAR PIEDMONT AND KOHISTAN | 138 | |
THE WESTERN FRINGE OF THE INDUS-HAKRA ALLUVIUM: THE POTWAR PLATEAU | 140 | |
THE INDUS-HAKRA PLAIN | 140 | |
The Hakra Ware Sites in Cholistan | 141 | |
The Kot Diji Sites in Cholistan and Kot Diji in Sind | 142 | |
The Hakra Ware and Kot Diji Phase at Jalitpur | 144 | |
The Kot Diji Phase at Harappa | 144 | |
The Kot DijilSothi Phase at Kalibangan | 144 | |
The Hakra Ware and Kot Diji/Sothi Phases at Kunal | 145 | |
The Kot DijilSothi Phase at Banawali and Other Places in Indian Punjab and Haryana | 146 | |
THE ARAVALLI BELT: THE GROWTH OF AN EARLY METALLURGICAL CENTRE | 146 | |
GUJARAT | 147 | |
TOWARD THE INDUS CIVILIZATION | 148 | |
V | THE INDUS OR HARAPPAN CIVILIZATION | 151 |
NAME | 151 | |
DISTRIBUTlON | 153 | |
ORIGIN | 160 | |
MORPHOLOGY OF SOME MAJOR SITES | 164 | |
Mohenjodaro | 164 | |
Chanhudaro | 168 | |
Harappa | 168 | |
Kalibangan | 169 | |
Banawali | 171 | |
Lothal | 172 | |
Surkotada | 173 | |
Dholavira | 175 | |
Kuntasi | 178 | |
General Features of Harappan Settlements | 179 | |
GENERAL FEATURES OF HARAPPAN CIVILIZATION | 179 | |
Seals and Script | 179 | |
Pottery | 182 | |
Lithic Industry | 186 | |
Metallurgy | 187 | |
Miscellaneous Arts' and Crafts | 188 | |
Weights and Linear Measures | 189 | |
Crops arid Domestic Animals | 190 | |
Trade | 192 | |
Religion | 194 | |
Sculptural Art | 195 | |
Skeletal Biology | 197 | |
CHRONOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK | 198 | |
POLITICAL AND SOCIAL FRAMEWORK | 199 | |
DECLINE AND TRANSFORMATION | 200 | |
VI | NEOLITHIC-CHALCOLITHIC AND IRON-BEARING CULTURES BEYOND THE HARAPPAN DIS1RIBUTION ZONE | 205 |
COMPLEXITIES OF THE BEGINNING OF FOOD PRODUCTION IN NON-HARAPPAN INDIA | 205 | |
THE MOUNTAINS IN THE NORTH | 209 | |
Gandhara Grave Culture | 209 | |
Kashmir Neolithic, Ladakh and Almorah (UP) | 202 | |
RAJASTHAN | 216 | |
North-east Rajasthan: Ganeshwar-Jodhpura Culture | 216 | |
South-east Rajasthan: The Ahar Culture | 217 | |
MADHYA PRADESH | 221 | |
MAHARASHTRA | 224 | |
KARNATAKA, ANDHRA, TAMIL NADU | 236 | |
The South Indian Neolithic and the Chalcolithic in Andhra | 236 | |
The Megalithic Complex | 238 | |
ORISSA, THE NORTH-EASTERN STATES, WEST BENGAL AND BIHAR | 239 | |
Orissa | 239 | |
The North-eastern States | 240 | |
West Bengal | 241 | |
Bihar | 243 | |
UTTAR PRADESH | 247 | |
Eastern Utter Pradesh | 247 | |
Western Uttar Pradesh | 251 | |
Upper Ganga Valley 'Copper Hoards' | 254 | |
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE INDIAN NEOLITHIC-CHALCOLITHIC AND IRON-BEARING CULTURES BEYOND THE HARAPPAN DISTRIBUTION ZONE | 260 | |
VII | THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF EARLY HISTORIC INDIA | 262 |
THE HISTORICAL FRAMEWORK OF EARLY HISTORIC INDIAN ARCHAEOLOGY | 265 | |
Dynastic History | 265 | |
A Geo-political Perspective of Early Indian Political History | 274 | |
Major Phases of Early Historic Economic History | 275 | |
SE1TLEMENT CONTEXTS | 279 | |
The North-west | 279 | |
Kashmir, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Sind | 281 | |
Haryana and the Upper Gangetic Valley | 284 | |
The Middle Gangetic Valley and the Trans-Sarayu Plain | 287 | |
Assam and the Northeast, the Padma-Bhagirathi Delta (Bangladesh-West Bengal) and Orissa | 288 | |
Andhra, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu | 288 | |
Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Rajasthan | 290 | |
INSCRIPTIONS | 290 | |
The Antiquity and Variety of Scripts | 290 | |
Contents and Styles of Early Inscriptions | 291 | |
Inscriptions of the Early Centuries AD | 294 | |
COINS | 295 | |
SCULPTURE, TERRACOITA, PAINTING | 300 | |
ARCHITECTURE | 309 | |
CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS | 315 | |
VIII | SOME GENERAL ISSUES | 319 |
GEOGRAPHY | 319 | |
PREHISTORY | 321 | |
SEITLEMENT | 324 | |
AGRICULTURE | 326 | |
METALLURGY | 329 | |
TRADE AND TRADE ROUTES | 333 | |
Afterword | 339 | |
Notes | 359 | |
Bibliography | 368 | |
Index | 387 |
This book present archaeological history from the palaeolithic beginnings to c.AD 300’ when early historic India assumed its basic from. It lucidly reconstructs the historical development of human-natural resource interaction in the subcontinents using maps, illustration, and tables. The second edition update the research to include new ideas and discoveries – of tools from the palaeolithic and mesolitshic ages and human fossil finds – in Indian archeology between 1998 and 2008. This comprehension and up to date book will be an essential reading for students and teachers of archaeology and ancient Indian history.
Dilip K. Chakrabarti is Emeritus professor of South Asian Archaeology and Senior Fellow, McDonald Institute for Archaeology Research, Cambridge University.
The Indian subcontinent has been an area for archaeological research for over 200 years. Since Independence the pace of this research has increased manifold, and despite some major lacunae, we have reached a stage of knowledge where it is possible to offer a connected account of the history of prehistoric and early historic India primarily, if not exclusively, on the basis of archaeology. The present volume aims to do that. It is much more than a compendium of ancient Indian archaeological data, bringing out, as it does, the flow of 'India's grassroots archaeological history in all its continuities and diversities. Beginning with the first stone tools in the subcontinent, the book weaves its archaeological history in all the areas and multiple strands of development till the early historic foundations. Among other things, it discusses the basic significance of Indian prehistoric studies, the variegated pattern of the beginning of village life in India, the various issues related to . , the Indus or Harappan civilization and how the transition to, and consolidation of, the early historical India took place.
This was written in the academic year 1997-8 and the formal invitation to do so came from OUP, New Delhi. I would like to thank them for this privilege.
Dr Sylvia Lachrnann kindly found time to read all its chapters, some of which were also read by Reverend G. Seevalee, Christopher Bayliss and Corinna Bower. My thanks are due to all of them. Dr Nayanjot Lahiri gave me a copy of Indian Archaeology-A Review, 1992-93 and helped in other ways.
The 'India' of this book is the Sanskrit Bharatavarsha, the subcontinent as a whole. In a major Bengali literary piece-Aranyak ('forest-dweller')- the author, Bibhuti Bhusan Bandopadhyay, enters into an imaginary dialogue with Bhanumati, a tribal princess who lived in a forest village called Chakmakitola.
Have you heard the name of Bharatavarsha? Bhanumati nodded to say that she had not heard the name. She had never been out of Chakmakitola. In which direction could one find Bharatavarsha?
If at the end of this book one is left with a sense of the archaeological direction to Bharatavarsha, I shall consider this humble endeavour of mine successful. . This book is dedicated to Mr v.c. Joshi, who played a significant role in the development of archaeological research in the subcontinent in the 1980s. As a consultant of the Ford Foundation, Delhi, he was instrumental in shaping the Foundations' interest in South Asian archaeology. In India this interest led, among, 9Jh.el:.things, to the sanction of major grants to the Indian Society for-Prehistoric and Quaternary Studies for its journal Man and Environment and the. archaeology sections of the Banaras Hindu University, Deccan College, Pune, and M.S. University, Baroda. In Bangladesh, the Foundation initiated the process of establishing archaeology in one of the universities, with Mr Joshi closely working with Bangladeshi colleagues. Those of us who came in contact with him will always remember his kindness and grace and deep commitment to duty.
There are two reasons why a historical study of ancient Indian cannot realize its full potential in the basis of textual sources alone. First, the sources which have been used, beginning with the Rigveda, were not meant to be historical sources, and whatever historical information has been gleaned from them is not free questions regarding their chronology, geographical applicability and even content. Except for the history of the king of Kashmir, written by kalhana in the twelfth century, there is no proper historical chronicle dating from the ancient period of Indian history. As H.C. Raychaudhuri wrote: ‘No Thucydides or Tacitus has left for posterity a genuine history of Ancient India.’ K.A.N. Sastri wrote of ‘the utter impossibility of basing any part of the ancient history of India solely, or even primarily, upon literary evidence.’
The problem of source is not limited to the texts. It affects in good measure inscription, coins, sculpture, painting and architecture as well, although in these cases geography and chronology are not among the problems. The number of early inscription is severely limited. They increase in number only in the tenth-twelfth centuries, more in the south than in the rest of the subcontinent. But inscriptions are not textual compositions, and like other textual composition, devote a lot space to conventional descriptions rather than to the first place. Coins come mostly from ‘hoards’—accidental, non-contextual discoveries which very often end up with the coin-dealers. A framework of the study of coins has no doubt emerged, but on many occasions the study of ancient India coins has not been to able to proceed beyond a study of their design. The same is true of the specimen of art and architecture. They are concerned much more with individual authorship and patronage, precisely the issue which would have made them exciting as historical documents.
Over the last two centuries or more, scholars have certainly mapped out the different areas of ancient India history, but in many cases this has been no more than a preliminary sketch of the terrain. It is doubtful I f they could do any better. When one remember that there is no fine chronological grouping of the early Buddhist literature and that the whole of it can be out only in a board period from the sixth to the second century BC, the generalized version of ‘Buddhist India’. Further, because the geographical perspective of these texts is limited mainly to the middle Ganga plain, this generalized version can apply not to India as a whole but only to the region which it invokes. This situation is true not merely of Buddhist India but virtually of all the epochs and geographical regions that we can think of in the context of ancient India. In fact, behind its academic curtain, there are vast stretches of darkness and too many loose ends. Under the circumstances, the pioneering modern historians of ancient India could only lay the outline of the subject, moving from epoch to epoch and giving us a general scaffolding which somehow holds together. It could also be only a story of historical development in a more or less single line which, in fact had the effect of blurring the multiple regional strands of India’s historical growth, at least for the early period.
Such basic limitation of the available sources cannot be wished away, nor can the situation improve by rephrasing the historical question in the language of the social sciences. Whatever cloak a modern historian of ancient India may wear—that of an old-fashioned or of a modern social scientist—one cannot shed the burden of proof , and historical proof, as well all know, lies basically in the sources.
Archaeology can greatly expand the nature of the sources in the context of ancient India. Even in the areas with a much larger mass of detailed and rigorous textual documentation, archaeological research often leads to hitherto unperceived dimensions of the historical landscape. In the case of ancient India , where the basic quantum and the rigour of textual documentation are comparatively limited, archaeological research becomes more than ordinarily significant.
Archaeology can also greatly change the nature of historical questions, and it is here that the second reason of the significant of archaeology in ancient Indian historical research is rooted. Although modern archaeology is not afraid of handing multitude of issue ranging from environment and subsistence to symbolism and cognition, it is primarily in the reconstruction if the story of man-land relationship through the ages that subject excels . what we want to emphasize in the context of the ancient history of such a vast land mass as the subcontinent that the framework of a past acceptable to all segments of its population can emerge.
The past is a hotly contested arena of modern times, and the fact that it has become so is in a large measure due to a sense of monolithic, racist past that we have inherited as a colonial legacy in a large part of the world. In the case of India, one immediately realize that since beginning of research on the history of ancient India, the story of its conquest by a carefully constructed ‘superior’ recial and linguistic group called the Aryans has been an overwhelmingly dominant theme and that this conquest and the subsequent assimilation of the various indigenous strands of culture by the conquering Aryans have been said to constitute the very basis of ancient Indian society and history. Even if this theme and approach are true—and we shall see in a later section that they are not –why should those who are considered beyond the Aryans pale accept this reconstruction of the past as their own?
Preface | xv | |
I | INTRODUCTION | 1 |
ANCIENT IND~ 'THE IMPOI«ANCE OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL | 1 | |
EVIDENCE | ||
THE DEVELOPMENT OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH IN THE SUBCONTIN | 4 | |
Early Notices | 4 | |
The Middle of the Eighteenth Century | 4 | |
The Establishment of the Asiatic Society in Calcutta | 5 | |
The 1830s | 7 | |
Alexander Cunningham and His Successors till 1902 | 8 | |
The Role of Indians in Indian Archaeological Studies till the Close of the Nineteenth Century | 10 | |
Some Operative Forces in the Study of Ancient India | 10 | |
Indian Prehistoric Studies till the End of the Nineteenth Century | 12 | |
Indian Archaeology at the Turn of the Twentieth Century and the Impact of lord Curzon | 12 | |
The John Marshall Era in Indian Archaeology, 1902-44 | 14 | |
Mortimer Wheeler and the Archaeological Survey, 1944-48 | 15 | |
Archaeology in Post-Independence India | 16 | |
AIMS AND STRUCTURE | 19 | |
THE LAND MASS | 20 | |
Geographical Preliminarie | 20 | |
Geographical Issues | 24 | |
India in Relation to the Rest of Asia and Africa | 24 | |
Frontiers and Boundaries | 26 | |
India as a Geographical Entity | 28 | |
Major Geographical Lineaments of Indian History and Archaeology | 29 | |
Areas of Attraction, Relative Isolation and Isolation: a Critique of the Idea | 30 | |
PEOPLES AND LANGUAGES: THE BASIC CLASSIFICATORY FRAMEWORKS | 30 | |
Recent Approach of the Anthropological Survey of India | 31 | |
The Classificatory Systems based on the Concept of Race | 34 | |
CONCLUDING REMARKS | 39 | |
II | THE PALAEOLITHIC CONTEXT | 41 |
RESEARCH BACKGROUND | 41 | |
SKELETAL EVIDENCE | 48 | |
THE EARLIEST DATES of PALAEOLITHIC TOOLS IN THE SUBCONTINENT | 51 | |
DISTRIBUTION, STRATIGRAPHY, CLIMATE | 54 | |
Preliminary Issues | 54 | |
Regional Survey | 58 | |
CHRONOLOGY | 74 | |
CULTURAL EVIDENCE | 75 | |
Preliminary Remarks | 75 | |
Beyond Tools | 78 | |
Ethnographic Approach | 86 | |
THE EVIDENCE OF ART (? | 88 | |
CONCLUDING REMARKS | 89 | |
III | THE MESOLITHIC HORIZON AND ASSOCIATED ROCK ART | 91 |
THE CONCEPT OF A MESOLITHIC LEVEL AND ITS DISTRIBUTION | 92 | |
CLIMATE | 95 | |
CHRONOLOGY | 98 | |
CULTURAL EVIDENCE | 100 | |
Bagor, Phase I | 100 | |
Adamgarh | 101 | |
Baghor II | 101 | |
The Excavated Sites in Uttar Pradesh: Chopani Mando, Sarai Nahar Rai, Mahadaha and Damdama | 102 | |
Paisra | 109 | |
ASSOCIATED ROCK ART | 110 | |
CONCLUDING REMARKS | 116 | |
IV | THE GROWTH OF VILLAGES: FROM BALUCHISTAN TO HARYANA AND GUJARAT | 117 |
THE MOUNTAINOUS RIM IN THE NORTH-WEST: BALUCHISTAN | 117 | |
The Northern Part of the Kachhi Plain: Mehrgarh | 117 | |
The Quetta Valley: Kite Gul Mohammad and Damb Sadaat | 126 | |
The Zhob-Loralai Area: the Rana Ghundai Sequence | 128 | |
The Kalat Plateau: Anjira and Sia Damb in the Sohrab Area | 130 | |
The Khozdar Area: Nal | 131 | |
The Kulli Culture of Kolwa and the Area around Bela: Niai Buthi, Nindowari and Edith Shahr Complex | 133 | |
The Coastal Plain of Sonmiani Bay: Bala Kot | 134 | |
The Turbat Oasis in the Kej Valley: Miri Qalat and Shahi Tump | 135 | |
Early Village Cultures of Baluchistan | 136 | |
THE MOUNTAINOUS RIM IN THE NORTH-WEST: BANNU | 136 | |
THE WESTERN FRINGE OF THE INDUS-HAKRA ALLUVIUM: THE GOMAL V ALLEY | 138 | |
THE WESTERN FRINGE OF THE INDUS-HAKRA ALLUVIUM: KIRTHAR PIEDMONT AND KOHISTAN | 138 | |
THE WESTERN FRINGE OF THE INDUS-HAKRA ALLUVIUM: THE POTWAR PLATEAU | 140 | |
THE INDUS-HAKRA PLAIN | 140 | |
The Hakra Ware Sites in Cholistan | 141 | |
The Kot Diji Sites in Cholistan and Kot Diji in Sind | 142 | |
The Hakra Ware and Kot Diji Phase at Jalitpur | 144 | |
The Kot Diji Phase at Harappa | 144 | |
The Kot DijilSothi Phase at Kalibangan | 144 | |
The Hakra Ware and Kot Diji/Sothi Phases at Kunal | 145 | |
The Kot DijilSothi Phase at Banawali and Other Places in Indian Punjab and Haryana | 146 | |
THE ARAVALLI BELT: THE GROWTH OF AN EARLY METALLURGICAL CENTRE | 146 | |
GUJARAT | 147 | |
TOWARD THE INDUS CIVILIZATION | 148 | |
V | THE INDUS OR HARAPPAN CIVILIZATION | 151 |
NAME | 151 | |
DISTRIBUTlON | 153 | |
ORIGIN | 160 | |
MORPHOLOGY OF SOME MAJOR SITES | 164 | |
Mohenjodaro | 164 | |
Chanhudaro | 168 | |
Harappa | 168 | |
Kalibangan | 169 | |
Banawali | 171 | |
Lothal | 172 | |
Surkotada | 173 | |
Dholavira | 175 | |
Kuntasi | 178 | |
General Features of Harappan Settlements | 179 | |
GENERAL FEATURES OF HARAPPAN CIVILIZATION | 179 | |
Seals and Script | 179 | |
Pottery | 182 | |
Lithic Industry | 186 | |
Metallurgy | 187 | |
Miscellaneous Arts' and Crafts | 188 | |
Weights and Linear Measures | 189 | |
Crops arid Domestic Animals | 190 | |
Trade | 192 | |
Religion | 194 | |
Sculptural Art | 195 | |
Skeletal Biology | 197 | |
CHRONOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK | 198 | |
POLITICAL AND SOCIAL FRAMEWORK | 199 | |
DECLINE AND TRANSFORMATION | 200 | |
VI | NEOLITHIC-CHALCOLITHIC AND IRON-BEARING CULTURES BEYOND THE HARAPPAN DIS1RIBUTION ZONE | 205 |
COMPLEXITIES OF THE BEGINNING OF FOOD PRODUCTION IN NON-HARAPPAN INDIA | 205 | |
THE MOUNTAINS IN THE NORTH | 209 | |
Gandhara Grave Culture | 209 | |
Kashmir Neolithic, Ladakh and Almorah (UP) | 202 | |
RAJASTHAN | 216 | |
North-east Rajasthan: Ganeshwar-Jodhpura Culture | 216 | |
South-east Rajasthan: The Ahar Culture | 217 | |
MADHYA PRADESH | 221 | |
MAHARASHTRA | 224 | |
KARNATAKA, ANDHRA, TAMIL NADU | 236 | |
The South Indian Neolithic and the Chalcolithic in Andhra | 236 | |
The Megalithic Complex | 238 | |
ORISSA, THE NORTH-EASTERN STATES, WEST BENGAL AND BIHAR | 239 | |
Orissa | 239 | |
The North-eastern States | 240 | |
West Bengal | 241 | |
Bihar | 243 | |
UTTAR PRADESH | 247 | |
Eastern Utter Pradesh | 247 | |
Western Uttar Pradesh | 251 | |
Upper Ganga Valley 'Copper Hoards' | 254 | |
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE INDIAN NEOLITHIC-CHALCOLITHIC AND IRON-BEARING CULTURES BEYOND THE HARAPPAN DISTRIBUTION ZONE | 260 | |
VII | THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF EARLY HISTORIC INDIA | 262 |
THE HISTORICAL FRAMEWORK OF EARLY HISTORIC INDIAN ARCHAEOLOGY | 265 | |
Dynastic History | 265 | |
A Geo-political Perspective of Early Indian Political History | 274 | |
Major Phases of Early Historic Economic History | 275 | |
SE1TLEMENT CONTEXTS | 279 | |
The North-west | 279 | |
Kashmir, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Sind | 281 | |
Haryana and the Upper Gangetic Valley | 284 | |
The Middle Gangetic Valley and the Trans-Sarayu Plain | 287 | |
Assam and the Northeast, the Padma-Bhagirathi Delta (Bangladesh-West Bengal) and Orissa | 288 | |
Andhra, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu | 288 | |
Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Rajasthan | 290 | |
INSCRIPTIONS | 290 | |
The Antiquity and Variety of Scripts | 290 | |
Contents and Styles of Early Inscriptions | 291 | |
Inscriptions of the Early Centuries AD | 294 | |
COINS | 295 | |
SCULPTURE, TERRACOITA, PAINTING | 300 | |
ARCHITECTURE | 309 | |
CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS | 315 | |
VIII | SOME GENERAL ISSUES | 319 |
GEOGRAPHY | 319 | |
PREHISTORY | 321 | |
SEITLEMENT | 324 | |
AGRICULTURE | 326 | |
METALLURGY | 329 | |
TRADE AND TRADE ROUTES | 333 | |
Afterword | 339 | |
Notes | 359 | |
Bibliography | 368 | |
Index | 387 |