Chapter Three

The Transition to Food Production: Neolithic, Neolithic– Chalcolithic, and Chalcolithic Villages, c. 7000–2000 BCE

Chapter outline

(< />)THE NEOLITHIC AGE AND THE BEGINNINGS OF FOOD PRODUCTION

(< />)WHY DOMESTICATION?

(< />)THE IDENTIFICATION OF DOMESTICATION AND FOOD PRODUCTION IN THE

ARCHAEOLOGICAL RECORD

(< />)THE TRANSITION TO FOOD PRODUCTION IN THE INDIAN SUBCONTINENT

(< />)THE LIFE OF EARLY FARMERS

(< />)CHANGES IN CULTIC AND BELIEF SYSTEMS (< />)CONCLUSIONS

A POT FROM NAL, BALUCHISTAN

With its arid, mountainous terrain and extreme climate, the Kachi plain in the Baluchistan province of Pakistan appears at first glance to offer a rather inhospitable environment for human settlement. The higher valleys are often covered with snow for up to two months in the year. Rainfall does not usually exceed 10 cm per annum and most of it occurs in winter. However, the river valleys are dotted with many prosperous villages, and a major trade artery connecting the Indus valley with central Asia winds through. The area is inhabited by pastoral nomads and agriculturalists. Wild cereals and wild game are abundant. Farmers dam the non-perennial streams to irrigate their fields with the overflow. Wheat is the main crop, and the area is considered the ‘bread basket’ of Baluchistan. The Kachi plain is also extremely rich in ancient archaeological sites.

In 1968, Sardar Ghaus Baksh Raisini drew the attention of archaeologists to a mound near his winter residence on the banks of the Bolan river, about 10 km south of Dadhar, the main settlement of Kachi district. Following up Raisini’s tip, a French archaeological mission, in collaboration with the Department of Archaeology of Pakistan, started excavating the site of Mehrgarh in 1974. The excavations eventually extended over a decade and their results radically altered the understanding of the beginnings of agriculture in the subcontinent.

The world’s first agricultural villages emerged in c. 8000–6000 BCE. West Asia was an early centre of wheat and barley farming, and the earliest domesticated animals in this area included sheep and goats. Early neolithic villages have been identified at Jericho and ‘Ain Ghazal in Jordan, Tepe Guran, and Ali Kosh in Iran, Çatal Hüyük in Turkey, and Cayonu in north Syria. In Southeast Asia, excavations at the Spirit Cave in Thailand revealed 10 different plants species including almond, pepper, cucumber, betel nut, beans, and peas. Although it is not certain whether all of them were cultivated, the wide range of plant remains suggests more than a simple food-gathering community. The excavations at Mehrgarh, which gave evidence of barley and wheat cultivation, and cattle, sheep, and goat domestication, indicated that Baluchistan in South Asia was a third zone of early agriculture. There is a possibility of equally early dates for rice cultivation from the northern fringes of the Vindhyas in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India. As the evidence does not suggest any direct connections between the various zones of early agriculture, they must be considered independent centres.

Within the next few millennia, the domestication of plants and animals was being practised in other parts of the world as well. Hemudu in south China has given evidence of rice cultivation and the domestication of water buffalo, dog, and pig in late 6th–early 5th millennia BCE contexts. By 5000 BCE, the people of Mexico were growing corn, beans, squash, gourds, avocados, and chilli pepper, and were domesticating turkeys, dogs, and honeybees. At about the same time, communities living in the Peruvian highlands were cultivating beans, gourds, tomatoes, and potatoes, and may have domesticated the llama and alpaca. In sub-Saharan Africa, the cultivation of finger millet, sorghum, rice, teff, and yams, and the domestication of sheep, goats, and cattle came to be established in various ecological niches. The primary domestication of plants and animals took place in areas where the concerned species were native, but these swiftly spread to secondary areas of domestication in different parts of the world.

The Neolithic Age and the Beginnings of Food Production

The domestication of animals and plants was the outcome of a long series of collective experiments involving many generations of men, women, and children, stretching out over hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years. We will never know the names of the people who took part in these experiments and made the critical choices and changes in their strategies of obtaining food. But the processes they set in motion marked one of the greatest achievements of humankind. Archaeological evidence records a fairly late stage in the story of animal and plant domestication, when it was already well underway. Although many details of these processes still elude us, it is possible to reconstruct various aspects of the transition from hunting-gathering to domestication in different parts of the world.

MAP 3.1 CENTRES OF AGRICULTURE

The domestication of plants and animals marked a special kind of human interference in nature and a new stage in the relationship between people, plants, and animals. It involved removing plants and animals from their natural habitat, a process of selective breeding and rearing under artificial conditions under human control for purposes of human gain. There are differences between plant collection and plant domestication, and between animal keeping and animal domestication. When grain is harvested and all of it is consumed, this is a stage of food collection. If, after harvesting, some grain is consumed for food and the rest put aside and later intentionally planted, this is the stage of plant domestication. When certain species of animals are captured and kept, this is a stage of animal keeping. When wild animals are removed from their natural habitat and maintained and bred under artificial conditions by people for their profit, this is the stage of animal breeding or domestication.

It is possible to identify gradual shifts in the balance of subsistence strategies from hunting and gathering towards animal rearing and agriculture. For instance, the background to the beginnings of

plant domestication was the transition from simple foraging (food collection) to complex foraging, the latter representing a stage of intensive exploitation of wild plants. The next stage was that of incipient (early) agriculture, which, over time, led to the stage of developed agriculture. In the long run, such shifts were associated with technological changes, greater food availability, a rise in population, an increase in the number and size of human settlements, and more complex social and political organization.

Hundreds, probably thousands, of years must have elapsed between the initial domestication of plants and animals in an area and the increased reliance of people on these resources for their food. A distinction can be made between societies in which a small amount of food is obtained through animal and/or plant domestication and those which obtain a significant or substantial amount of food through these activities. It is the latter that can be described as food producing societies. A working definition of a food-producing society is one which meets at least half its food needs for at least part of the year through the domestication of animals and/or plants, in a context wherein animals and plants are not tied to their natural habitat. Of course, since precise statistics are unavailable for ancient societies, the extent to which a group depended on domestication for its food can only be gauged subjectively.

In the classification of the stone age, the neolithic age is associated with innovations in stone tool technology, specifically the making of ground, pecked, and polished stone tools and the advent of food production. Changes in stone tools were related to shifts in subsistence strategies. Other features of the neolithic phase include the invention of pottery, a greater degree of sedentary living, the emergence of small and relatively self-sufficient village communities, and a division of labour based on sex. V. Gordon Childe coined the phrase neolithic revolution to highlight the enormous significance of these changes. This was a gradual revolution, which took place several times in different regions, with varied features and results.

Why Domestication?

After thousands and thousands of years of hunting and gathering, why did some groups of people start domesticating animals and plants? One of the earliest attempts to answer this question was made by V. Gordon Childe (1952), who suggested that environmental changes at the end of the Pleistocene were the impetus towards food production. Childe argued that about 10,000 years ago, the climate in parts of West Asia became drier due to a northward shift of the summer rains. This desiccation (i.e., drying up) led to a concentration of people, plants, and animals close to water resources such as rivers and oases. This enforced closeness eventually led to new relationships of dependence between humans, plants, and animals, resulting in domestication.

Childe’s theory was questioned by Robert J. Braidwood (1960), who rejected the focus on environmental change as the crucial factor leading to agriculture. He pointed out that environmental changes had occurred within the Pleistocene as well and had not led to agriculture. Braidwood argued that domestication took place in certain nuclear zones, which supported a variety of wild plants and animals that had the potential for domestication. In such areas, domestication was the natural outcome of human experimentation and people getting to know their environment better. This theory does not really explain the pressures or incentives that may have led to domestication. There is ethnographic evidence of many hunting-gathering communities who know their environment very

well and are even aware of agriculture, but do not see the point of practising it themselves. There have to be good reasons for a community to radically change its way of life.

Braidwood’s theory was rejected by Lewis R. Binford (1968) on the grounds that it could not be archaeologically tested, and that there are some specific, concrete factors that can explain the beginnings of agriculture. Binford asserted that ethnographic evidence indicates that in areas where environment and population have remained constant, a stable balance between the human population and food resources is achieved and people do not have to look for new sources or strategies of getting food. Such groups in fact tend to live at food consumption levels far below the resource potential of their environment. Two factors can upset the balance between people and food: stress produced by environmental change or by demographic (population) growth. Binford identified two kinds of demographic stress—internal demographic stress, which occurs when the number of people within a community increase; and external demographic stress, caused by immigration into an area by people from another area.

In the context of the origins of agriculture, Binford emphasized external demographic stress. He argued that at the end of the Pleistocene era, as a result of a rise in sea levels, people living along the coasts migrated to less populated inland areas. This upset the people–food equilibrium in inland areas and gave an impetus to the search for new strategies to increase food supplies. The problem is that evidence of a migration of people from the world’s sea coasts to inland areas at the end of the Pleistocene is lacking. Internal demographic stress may have been a factor in upsetting the people– food balance in some areas, but a question that can be raised is: can we really talk about ‘overpopulation’ and ‘food crisis’ in times when human communities were small and resources abundant?

Kent Flannery (1969) shifted the focus from the search for an event that might have led to the beginnings of food production to the process of food production itself and the adaptive advantages of plant and animal domestication over foraging and hunting. He distinguished two types of food procurement systems—negative and positive feedback food procurement systems. Negative feedback food procurement systems involve a balanced exploitation and use of various food resources within an area and discourage any change. Positive feedback systems are those in which the productivity of resources actually increases as a result of human interference and exploitation.

Flannery gives the example of the maize plant: When people transplanted maize from areas within its natural habitat to other areas, over time the plants responded to the process of domestication by a series of changes such as an increase in the size of the cob and in the number of grains. Genetic changes resulting from the process of cross-fertilization increased the productivity of this resource, and once people recognized this increased productivity, they turned more and more towards the domestication of maize. This hypothesis explains why people found agriculture more advantageous than food gathering, but it does not explain why the initial experiments in domestication were made in the first place.

Recent studies have suggested that the key may in fact lie in environmental change, although not the sort suggested many years ago by Childe. The extinction of big game, which took place in Europe, was not really a factor in zones of early agriculture such as West Asia. Here, gazelles, wild cattle, onagers (wild ass), deer, and wild goats remained the main sources of meat during much of the Pleistocene as well as in the early Holocene. On the other hand, what does seem to be relevant is the fact that in many parts of the world, the Holocene was marked by the onset of a milder, warmer, wetter climate. Such changes may have led to an expansion of the natural habitat area of wild cereals

that had the potential for domestication. Perhaps it was not an environmental crisis but amelioration that was responsible for the beginnings of domestication.

Given the limitations of the evidence and the fact that we are looking at very slow, gradual processes that must have varied in pace and detail, we may never be able to fully comprehend the details of the processes of animal and plant domestication or identify the impulses that lay behind them. It should also be remembered that in the case of complex cultural processes, the archaeological evidence often provides little ‘hard data’ on social and political factors that may have had an important role to play. More important than isolating a single factor responsible for the origins of domestication is to try to track down the process as it unfolded in different regions. Given the variety in ecology and resources in the various centres of early plant and animal domestication, it is very possible that different factors may have been involved in different parts of the world.

FIGURE 3.1 THE EVOLUTION OF MAIZE FROM THE WILD GRASS TEOSINTE; THE NUMBER OF GRAINS IN THE COB GRADUALLY INCREASED AND THE HUSKS EVENTUALLY BECAME ENCLOSURES FOR CORN EARS

The Identification of Domestication and Food Production in the Archaeological Record

When wild animals or plants are domesticated over long periods of time, certain morphological changes (i.e., changes in their form) tend to take place. In the case of animals, early domesticates tend to be smaller than their wild counterparts (later, when conditions of feeding and breeding reach an optimal level, their size tends to increase). The face becomes shorter in relation to the cranium. There are changes in dental structure—teeth become smaller, some teeth (such as the premolars and third molars) may disappear. Horns tend to reduce in size. Domesticated cattle have weak muscle ridges and poorly defined joint facets, while in the case of draught animals there is a strengthening of certain muscles. Domestication also leads to a shortening of the animal’s hair and changes in its coloration.

Morphological changes of the sort listed above appear only when domestication has been underway for a long time and will not be apparent in the early stages. For example, it has been estimated that it took thousands of years of domestication for such changes to become apparent in the case of the horse, while they were faster in the case of cattle, goats, and sheep. Nevertheless, once such changes manifest themselves, it is usually possible for scientists to study the animal bones and teeth found at an archaeological site and to identify not only the animal they represent, but also whether this animal was wild or domesticated. The task of identifying the bones of a domesticated variety of an animal is made easier if bones of wild or transitional forms are also present at the site.

Apart from the direct scientific analysis of animal bones, there are other ways of inferring animal domestication. Animals found outside their natural habitat—for instance, mountain goats found in the plains—suggest domestication. Age and sex ratios reflected in the faunal assemblage can also provide important clues. In the wild, the male–female proportion among animals is 1:1. However, when they are bred, males and castrates are killed quite young and females are killed in old age. These patterns can be identified in the faunal record.

Just as in the case of animals, wild and domesticated plant grains and seeds can also be differentiated. Under conditions of domestication, over a long period of time, plants undergo certain morphological changes. For example, the grains of wild wheat and barley are larger than those of

domesticated varieties. Wild varieties of wheat and barley have brittle ears and fragile spikes and their ears break apart immediately on reaching maturity. This is the natural way in which plants maximize their seed dispersal. In the case of domesticated wheat and barley, on the other hand, the ears break up only at the stage of threshing. Not all plants have an equally good chance of surviving or being recognized in the archaeological record. Root crops such as potatoes and yams lack hard parts and are therefore less likely to survive. Further, since they reproduce asexually, they do not necessarily undergo significant genetic changes during the process of domestication, and they may have so many different varieties that it is difficult to distinguish between wild and domesticated ones.

Direct evidence of plant domestication can be obtained by a careful analysis of grains or seeds found at a site, especially those that get carbonized due to contact with fire. Even an analysis of impressions of grain or husk on lumps of clay or pottery can help identify domestication.

Indirect evidence of animal or plant domestication can be inferred from art remains such as representations of people capturing or tending animals, harvesting grain, or processing food. However, none of these are conclusive. Animal capture could indicate hunting, tending animals could reflect a stage of animal keeping, and harvesting grain and food processing are perfectly compatible with a stage of food collection. Certain kinds of artefacts and tools such as grinding stones and sickles are sometimes taken as indicative of plant domestication, but their evidence is not conclusive. Grinding stones can be used to grind collected wild grain and sickles can be used to reap wild plants. Evidence from the natural sciences—the analysis of pollen grains, molluscs, remains of insects, etc.—can indicate changes in land use and indirectly, the presence or absence of agriculture.

However, ascertaining the food-producing status of a community is more difficult and subjective. While some sites give clear evidence of the importance of animal and/or plant domestication in their subsistence base, in many more cases, there is insufficient evidence to make an assessment. In fact, in the Indian subcontinent, sites are often labelled ‘neolithic’ simply on the basis of the presence of ground and polished stone tools.

PRIMARY SOURCES

The analysis of ancient plant remains

The study of ancient plant remains is known as palaeobotany or archaeobotany. Botanical remains from ancient sites often include macro-botanical remains such as seeds or grains. These can get preserved through desiccation, waterlogging, or charring. It is possible to collect seeds or grains manually in the course of an excavation. However, this can damage them and smaller pieces may be missed. A more efficient method is the use of the flotation technique. There are different kinds of flotation apparatuses, but the basic principle in all of them is the same. This involves slowly and steadily pouring dried carbonized plant material along with its soil matrix into a liquid medium such as water. The inorganic material will sink to the bottom and the carbonized seeds will float on the surface and can be retrieved. These are then collected and

analysed under microscopes to determine what types of plants they represent and whether these were wild or domesticated.

Plant remains can also take the form of micro-botanical remains. Tiny particles of silica called phytoliths are found in certain specific parts of a plant (e.g., the root, stem, or flower). Their recovery from a site can help differentiate between wild and domesticated species. Analysis of plant parenchyma (soft tissue of roundish, thin-walled cells in a plant stem or in the pulp of fruits) can be used for a similar purpose.

Palynology—the analysis of pollen and spores—is another important technique. Pollen are the tiny reproductive bodies of flowering plants. Their strong outer exine (shell) can survive in certain kinds of sediments for thousands of years. Scientists can study pollen grains under microscopes and identify the plants they belong to. Changes in pollen profiles in different archaeological layers may suggest climatic change, forest clearance, or agriculture.

These days, several new techniques are available, but these are so far used mostly in the West. For instance, it is possible to directly date tiny pieces of squash seeds and maize cobs through the use of accelerator mass spectrometric (AMS) dating. DNA studies can identify the chromosome structure in different plant genotypes. This can help establish links between domesticated and wild species of plants and identify the area where wild progenitors of domesticated species were originally located.

FIGURE 3.2 AFLOTATION APPARATUS

The Transition to Food Production in the Indian Subcontinent

The neolithic age is generally associated with food production, pottery, and sedentary living. The reality is more complex. In the Indian subcontinent, the roots of some of the features associated with the neolithic can be traced to the mesolithic phase. In the last chapter, there were references to the evidence of pottery and animal domestication at certain mesolithic sites. On the other hand, as we shall see, there are some neolithic sites without pottery. The issue of sedentism (i.e., sedentary living) is also complex. As we have already seen, some mesolithic hunter-gatherer communities led a fairly sedentary life. And there were some communities practising animal and/or plant domestication who did not live for very long in the same place. Further, instead of thinking of sedentary and nomadic life as two alternatives, it is necessary to recognize different degrees of sedentism in the lifestyle of various communities.

The beginnings of animal and plant domestication did not mean the end of the hunting-gathering way of life. Communities that practised animal rearing and agriculture usually continued to hunt and forage for food. Moreover, there were numerous communities who retained their hunting-gathering way of life and never switched over to domestication at all. This chapter, however, focuses on those that did make the transition. Given the great ecological diversity in different parts of the subcontinent —especially in climate, soil, and the availability of plant and animal species that could be

potentially domesticated—it is not surprising that the details of the various adaptations made by early pastoralists and agriculturists varied quite a bit.

One reason why the title of this chapter highlights the beginnings of food production rather than the neolithic is because food production is the most important aspect of the neolithic phase. Secondly, the history of early food-producing settlements in the subcontinent consists of different regional profiles and trajectories. In certain regions (e.g., the northern fringes of the Vindhyas), the food-producing neolithic culture emerged out of an earlier mesolithic phase. In other areas (such as the north-west), there is no mesolithic phase and the earliest settlements seem to belong to neolithic agriculturists and pastoralists. Another important point to note is that while there are some ‘pure neolithic’ sites, there are many more neolithic–chalcolithic cultures which have elements of the neolithic along with the use of metal (mainly copper). In still other parts of the subcontinent (such as Rajasthan), there is so far little evidence of a neolithic or even neolithic–chalcolithic stage, and the earliest sedentary communities appear in a full-fledged chalcolithic context.

Since we are dealing with a vast expanse of time, and in order to convey the idea of the complex and variegated cultural mosaic, in this book, the discussion of food-producing agricultural–pastoral communities of the subcontinent has been divided into three overlapping phases: Phase I—c. 7000– 3000 BCE; Phase II—c. 3000–2000 BCE; and Phase III—c. 2000–1000 BCE onwards. The first two phases are discussed in this chapter, while the third will be discussed in (< />)Chapter 5. In the case of sites which have a long cultural sequence, only the earliest phases that fall within the first two chronological phases are discussed here; the later phases will be discussed in (< />)Chapter 5. The various geographical zones of early food-producing communities are discussed in terms of their chronology, general features, and specific traits, against the background of the cultural sequence of that particular area (for site details, see Chakrabarti, 1999: 117–40; Allchin and Allchin, 1999: 97– 127).

THE EARLIEST VILLAGE SETTLEMENTS IN THE INDIAN SUBCONTINENT, C. 7000–3000 BCE

THE NORTH-WEST

Several sites in Baluchistan illustrate the change from a semi-nomadic pastoral life towards settled agriculture. The oldest and best documented evidence comes from Mehrgarh (Jarrige et al., n.d.). This site is located in the Bolan valley in the northern part of the Kachi plain, near the point where the river emerges from the hills through the Bolan pass. The Bolan valley was an important link between the Indus plains and the mountainous valleys of north Baluchistan, and people and animals must have moved along this route from very early times. Excavations at Mehrgarh revealed the remains of ancient settlements scattered over an area of about 200 ha on a low mound and the surrounding plain. Seven occupational levels were identified, giving striking evidence of continuous occupation and of cultural continuity and change over many millennia. The first six levels, i.e., Periods, are relevant for us here.

Periods I and II at Mehrgarh are considered neolithic, even though there is a small amount of copper present. The remains of Period I (sub-divided into Periods IA and IB) were located in an 11 m thick deposit at the northern end of the site, on the high bank of the Bolan river. The chronology of this phase is somewhat uncertain due to inconsistent radiocarbon dates. The majority of the dates fall between 6000 and 5500 BP (c. 5000 BCE, calibrated). The problem is that although Period I seems

to have lasted for a very long time, most of the radiocarbon dates for the middle levels of Period IA also fall within the range of 5800 and 5530 BP. Furthermore, the excavators point out that there are also some much earlier radiocarbon dates—9385 ± 120 BP for Period IA; 7115 ± 120 BP for Period IIB; and 6500 ± 80 BP for Period III. This series of earlier dates has the advantage of providing a coherent chronological framework for the Mehrgarh neolithic sequence from the 8th to 6th millennia BCE.

The people of Period I (this includes both Periods IA and IB) lived in houses made of handmade mud-bricks with small, rectangular rooms. One of the rooms at the lowest levels of Period I, measuring 2 × 1.8 m, had reed impressions on the floor and a grinding stone. The bricks used for house walls were of a standardized size, with distinctive rounded ends and finger impressions on their upper surface. Some of the structures divided into small units may have been granaries.

The stone tools of Period I included thousands of microliths, most of them based on blades. A few ground neolithic handaxes (celts) were also found. Some of the blades were set into wooden handles with a thick layer of bitumen and may have been used as sickles to harvest grain. Grinding stones indicate food processing. There were a few stone vessels and objects such as perforated discs and spatulae incised with a criss-cross design. Bone tools, including needles and awls, were also found, as was a handmade clay female figurine. Mehrgarh I was basically a-ceramic, i.e., it had no pottery; the first few pieces of pottery appeared in Period IB.

The people of Period I buried their dead in the open spaces between their houses. The bodies were placed in oval pits in a flexed (bent) position. The bones were often covered with red ochre, suggesting some sort of fertility beliefs. In at least two burials, young goats had been placed near the feet of the body. Grave goods included bitumen-lined baskets and food offerings, and ornaments such as necklaces made of stone or shell beads, bone pendants, and anklets. A copper bead was found in one of the burials. The occurrence of turquoise and lapis lazuli beads is especially interesting. The lapis lazuli could have come from the Chagai hills in north Baluchistan or from Afghanistan. Turquoise could have come from eastern Iran or central Asia. The nearest source of marine shells is the Makran coast, about 500 km away. The presence of such items in the graves indicates that the people of Mehrgarh were engaged in some amount of long-distance exchange.

In Period IB, a graveyard consisting of 150 burials covering over 220 sq m was unearthed. The burials were more elaborate than before. A small niche was cut into one side of a pit, and the body and grave goods were placed inside. The niche was then sealed with a wall made of mud-brick, after which the pit was filled up. A few copper beads were found in the burials. There are some instances of double burials and also of secondary burials, where the bones of one or more people were collected and buried after exposing the body to the elements. The significance of these changes in burial practices is unclear.

Period II at Mehrgarh, dated c. 6000–4500 BCE, is divided into three sub-phases—A, B, and C. The size of the settlement increased during this period and there were several mud-brick structures divided into small cell-like compartments. Some of these may have been houses, but others may have been used for storage. For instance, double rows of small rooms with a passage in between, with barley seeds on the floors, may have been used to store grain. The stone and bone tool types of Period I continued. There were two sickles made of microliths hafted onto a bitumen matrix. P. Vaughan’s microwear study of stone tools found in an area of Period IIA indicates that most of them were connected with the working of animal products—activities such as butchery, cooking, hide

processing, and the making of bone artefacts. Small amounts of handmade pottery occurred in the early part of Period II and wheel-made pottery appeared in Period IIC. In Period IIB, a copper ring and bead and a small ingot of copper were found. Other finds of Period II included an ivory tusk, pieces of red ochre, grinding stones, and a small unbaked clay figurine of a male torso. There were two flexed burials, the bodies covered with red ochre, unaccompanied by any grave goods.

Mehrgarh III belongs to the second half of the 5th millennium BCE and is chalcolithic. There is evidence of a significant increase in craft activities, including large-scale production of wheel-made pottery with painted decorations, marked by innovations and refinement in pottery-making techniques. A pottery-manufacturing area was found, where the bases of three ovens were exposed on top of an accumulation of 6 m of pottery debris. The frequent occurrence of ornaments such as necklaces and bracelets made out of tiny steatite beads indicate that bead making was another important craft. There were also beads of semi-precious stones such as lapis lazuli, turquoise, and agate, as well as of terracotta and shell. Stone micro-drills may have been used to make engravings on shell. There were a few terracotta humped bulls. Terracotta crucibles with traces of copper suggest the beginning of metallurgy.

Period III had storage complexes divided into compartments, similar to those of earlier phases. A large cemetery containing the burials of about 99 people shows changes in burial practices. The niches walled in by cigar-shaped bricks, known in Period II, were absent. The heads of some of the skeletons were placed on bricks. There was one collective burial with two wheel-made painted pots as grave goods (pots are not found in any other burial). In another burial, a copper or bronze object that looks like a fragment of a segmented seal was found near the skull. Ornaments, mostly made of steatite micro-beads, occurred frequently among the grave goods. There were also pendants of lapis lazuli, carnelian, turquoise, chrysoprase, agate, terracotta, and seashell.

The most remarkable aspect of Periods I–III is that they provide the earliest and most comprehensive evidence of subsistence activities in the region, revealing the transition from hunting and food gathering to a heavy reliance on animal domestication and agriculture. Thousands of plant specimens were collected in the course of the Mehrgarh excavations. These included charred grains and seeds as well as impressions of grain on mud-brick. Barley seems to have been the most important crop. In Period I, the predominant type of barley was six-row naked barley (Hordeum vulgare nudum). There were also other varieties—hulled six-row barley (Hordeum vulgare vulgare) and wild and domesticated hulled two-row barley (Hordeum vulgare spontaneum and Hordeum vulgare distichum). The fact that wild, transitional, and domesticated varieties of barley were found at the site proves that north Baluchistan fell within the natural habitat zone of wild barley and that Mehrgarh was part of a large nuclear area of barley domestication.

FIGURE 3.3 BURIAL WITH STONE BLADES, CORES, AND A CELT AS GRAVE GOODS, MEHRGARH, PERIOD I

Wheat was another important crop. Grains of domesticated hulled einkorn wheat (Triticum monococcum), emmer wheat (Triticum diococcum), and naked wheat (Triticum durum) were found in Period I. In later periods, a large proportion of the wheat grains belonged to the Triticum sphaerococcum variety. Whether Mehrgarh fell within the natural habitat zone of wild wheat is a matter of debate, as no clear evidence of wild wheat has so far been found in the area. But there is no doubt that the people of Mehrgarh were domesticating this cereal.

Seeds of ber (Zizyphus jujube) and dates (Phoenix dactylifera) were also found in Periods I and II. In Period II, in addition to barley and wheat, there were numerous seeds of cotton (Gossypium sp.) found in a hearth. Period III showed continuity with the earlier period, but also a diversification of agriculture. Two new varieties of wheat (Triticum aestivum compactum, Triticum aestivum sphaerococcum) and one of barley (Hordeum hexastichum) and a new cereal—oats (Avena sp.)— were identified. Wheat had become more important than barley.

Not much is known about the methods of cultivation practised by the neolithic and early chalcolithic people of Mehrgarh. Farmers must have relied on winter rains and may have channelized water into their fields by building mud or stone embankments similar to the gabarbands made in the region today. Stone sickles made by hafting tiny microliths onto wooden handles with bitumen must have been used for harvesting grain.

Neolithic Mehrgarh gives clear evidence of the transition from hunting to animal domestication. The lower levels of Period I were dominated by the bones of wild animals—deer (mostly gazelle, but also some blackbuck, sambar, and chital), nilgai, goat, onager (wild ass), water buffalo, cattle, pig, and perhaps elephant. There is also evidence of domesticated goats, and the decreasing size of sheep and cattle suggests that their domestication too was underway. By the end of Period I, the frequency of bones of gazelles and other wild animals had drastically decreased, while those of domesticated cattle, goats, and sheep had greatly increased. Cattle were now the most important domesticated animal. In Period III, cattle still dominated, but there was an increase in the proportion of sheep and goat bones. Interestingly, Period III also showed an increase in the number of bones of wild animals, suggesting resurgence in hunting activity.

J. R. Lukacs’ study (1985) of the human dental remains shows a low rate of dental caries (cavities) in the early levels. This may have been due to the high fluoride levels in the drinking water available in the area. Other features of the teeth suggest that people had a coarse diet. There is evidence of tooth probing (people poking their teeth either to sooth pain or prise out food). Dental health declined in Period III, and this may have been due to changes in food habits, for instance, the consumption of more refined foods.

The evidence from Period IV onwards shows a further expansion of the settlement, diversification of agriculture and crafts, and more and better decorated pottery. In Period IV, there were larger structures, with rooms separated from each other by wide walls and doors with wooden lintels. One door, only 1.10 m high (people must have had to bend down to go through) led into a room crammed with many objects such as stone flakes, blades, grinding stones, pestles, and many bones. Other items found in this room included a storage jar, a crushed basin with ridges and snake designs painted on the inner side, fine goblets, and beautifully painted vessels. The pottery of Period IV included polychrome wares. A new style of terracotta female figurines with a tubular body, pinched nose, and joined legs made its appearance. There are continuities in pottery designs between Periods IV and V. In Period VI, there were some changes—the appearance of a red ware decorated with pipal leaves, and a well-fired grey ware. This is also the time when similar styles of pottery began appearing in various parts of Baluchistan, suggesting an increase in interaction. A large pottery kiln was found in Period VI. A distinctive feature of this period are terracotta female figurines with elaborate hairstyles, heavy breasts, and joined legs, which may have had a cultic significance. Several large mounds in the Kachi plain may represent unexplored sites contemporary to the later periods of Mehrgarh.

The Bolan pass leads from Mehrgarh into the Quetta valley, where there are a number of sites. Today, farmers of this valley compensate for meagre rainfall by using water drawn from wells and streams to irrigate their fields. Kile (also spelt Kili) Gul Mohammad and Damb Sadaat are two of the important excavated sites in this area. Kile Gul Mohammad is about 3.2 km from Quetta city, on the banks of the Hannah river. The mound is a small one—about 90 × 55 m. Walter A. Fairservis (1950) conducted a small excavation over a 3.5 sq m area up to a depth of 11.14 m, reaching natural soil. The excavation revealed four periods of occupation—KGM I, KGM II, KGM III, and KGM IV. Radiocarbon dates from the upper levels of neolithic KGM I fall between c. 5000 and 4500 BCE, but the beginning of the settlement could go back to c. 5500 BCE, or even earlier. There was no evidence of pottery at this stage. Bones of domesticated cattle, sheep, goat, and ass/horse were found. There were no cereals, but two sickle blades were discovered.

The people of Kile Gul Mohammad may initially have been nomadic pastoralists, but by the end of Period I, they were living in houses made of mud or wattle-and-daub (interlaced rods and twigs plastered with mud). The artefacts included microliths and blades of chert, jasper, and chalcedony. There were a few ground tools and bone points. Handmade and basket-marked pottery made its appearance in KGM II. In KGM III, there was wheel-made pottery, including a fine black-on-red ware with geometric designs painted on it. Remains of mud-brick houses, some resting on stone foundations, have been found. The first copper objects made their appearance in Period III.

The uppermost level of Kile Gul Mohammad (KGM IV) was contemporary with the first period of occupation at Damb Sadaat (DS I), and there was a broad similarity in their cultural remains. KGM IV and DS I showed a distinctive type of pottery known as Kechi Beg Ware after the site where it

was first found. This was a well-fired, thin, buff-coloured pottery. The shapes included deep and wide vases, bowls, and jars. The pots were painted with geometric designs in black, sometimes also in red.

Calibrated dates for Period II of Damb Sadaat indicate c. 3000 BCE as its midpoint. In this phase, there were multi-roomed mud-brick structures, many with limestone blocks used in the foundations. Hearths for cooking, similar to modern tandoors, were found in houses. The pottery included a type known as Quetta ware—a buff-coloured ware decorated with black painted designs, with shapes such as jars with flaring or straight rims, small-mouthed bowls with a sharp angle between the shoulder and base, and jars with pedestals. There was also a grey pottery known as Faiz Mohammad Grey Ware. This was represented by shallow plates and deep, open bowls, painted with geometric and naturalistic designs. Terracotta objects included cattle figurines, some painted with black stripes, and female figurines similar to those found in Mehrgarh VI. There were also small terracotta models of houses, rattles, and seals. A copper/bronze blade of a dagger or knife, a bone spatula, and an alabaster vessel are other artefacts associated with Period II at Damb Sadaat.

Anjira and Siah Damb in the Kalat plateau were excavated by Beatrice de Cardi, the former in 1948 and 1957, and the latter in 1957. Five periods of occupation were identified; the earliest occupation was apparently contemporaneous with Period II at Kile Gul Mohammad. In the Kalat plateau, Period I represented a semi-nomadic settlement, with no traces of structures. The pottery included a fine wheel-made buff ware, sometimes with a burnished red slip (coating). Chert blades were also found. In Period II, there were mud structures made on stone boulder foundations. The pottery included a red-slipped ware and a burnished grey ware. In Period III, the foundations of houses were made of blocks of stone cut into rough squares. The earlier pottery made way for Togau ware, a red pottery with black painted designs. The main shapes were open bowls, and designs of stylized ibexes, birds, and goats were painted on the interior, just under the rim. There was also another kind of pottery (known as Zari ware) with paintings in white with black outlines. In Period IV, the stone used for making houses was properly dressed into square blocks and there was pottery similar to that found at Nal. Period V of the Kalat sites has been co-related with Damb Sadaat III.

Mundigak is located on a now dry tributary of the Arghandab river in south-east Afghanistan. Excavations at this site were carried out by J. M. Casal in the 1950s and 1960s. The dates for Period I (which is divided into several sub-phases) fall within c. 4000–3500 BCE. The early settlers seem to have been semi-nomadic, as no structures were found in the lowest levels of Period I. In phase 4 of Period I, there were small oblong cells with walls made of pressed earth. In phase 5, there were larger houses consisting of square or oblong rooms made of sun-dried bricks. Cooking hearths were initially situated outside the houses and later perhaps in the courtyards. There were wells in between the houses. Pottery was found throughout Period I and was mostly wheel-made. There were bone awls, alabaster vases, stone blades, and beads made of stone, lapis lazuli, and frit (a calcined mixture of sand and fluxes). The few copper objects included a needle and a small bent blade. A terracotta figurine of a humped bull was found in phase 3 of Period I. Period II at Mundigak gave evidence of plant remains—club wheat (Triticum compactum) and ber, and there were bones of domesticated cattle, sheep, and goats.

Explorations in the Zhob–Loralai area of Baluchistan have identified many early village sites in the plains of the Gomal, Zhob, Anambar, and Thal rivers. Sur Jangal, Dabar Kot, and Rana Ghundai are three important sites in the Anambar valley. The people living at these sites must have been

practising some form of irrigation, otherwise it is difficult to understand how they sustained themselves. The early phase of occupation at Sur Jangal seems to be contemporaneous to Kile Gul Mohammad IV. People lived in small mud houses. The large quantities of cattle bones indicate the importance of cattle rearing. Some of the pottery found at Sur Jangal was decorated with painted designs of humped and humpless cattle. Terracotta items included small house models. There were also goggle-eyed female figurines, similar to those found at other contemporary and slightly later sites in the Zhob valley (such as Periano Ghundai and also at Mehgarh VI and Damb Sadaat III). These figurines have been given the label ‘Zhob mother goddess’, and are assumed by some scholars to have had some sort of cultic significance.

Rana Ghundai in the Loralai valley was excavated by Brigadier Ross in the 1930s and re-investigated by Fairservis in 1950. Five occupational levels were identified. The calibrated dates for Period I gave a range of c. 4500–4300 BCE, while those for the early levels of Period III gave a range of c. 3500–3100 BCE. Period I consisted of a 4 m thick deposit and seems to represent a settlement of a semi-nomadic community. Traces of living surfaces and hearths were found, but there were no well-defined structural remains. Almost all the pottery was handmade and plain. There were bones of domesticated cattle, sheep, and goat. Four teeth, either of a horse or ass, were found. Brigadier Ross, a veterinary officer, was certain that they were horse teeth, but this has been contested by others. Microlithic blades, bone points, and needles with eyes were other artefacts found in Period I. In Period II, the typical pottery was wheel made, with a buff to red surface. Decorations included friezes of stylized humped bulls, and in one instance, blackbuck, all painted in black. The main pottery forms were bowls or cups with a wide shoulder, often with a ring base or hollow pedestal. In Period III, there were some changes in the style of painted pottery.

In the valley of the Gomal river (a tributary of the Indus), there are several early sites in Dera Ismail Khan district. Of these, Gumla and Rahman Dheri have been excavated. Gumla was excavated by a team from Peshawar University in 1971. Six cultural phases (i.e., periods) were identified, the first two of which are of interest to us here. Period I revealed a small settlement, just a little over 0.40 ha in size. There were microliths, bones of domesticated cattle, hearths, and large community ovens. Period I was a-ceramic; pottery made its appearance in Period II. Pots with a rough surface were followed by finer pottery painted with geometric designs, cattle, and fish. Terracotta female figurines were also found. There were microliths and a few objects of copper and bronze. Terracotta objects included bangles, cart models, gamesmen, and cattle and female figurines. There are similarities between some of the pottery designs and the female figurines of Gumla and certain sites in Turkmenistan in central Asia.

MAP 3.2 EARLY VILLAGE SETTLEMENTS IN THE NORTH-WEST

There are several sites to the north of Gumla and Rahman Dheri. One of them is Sheri Khan Tarakai, in the Bannu basin, where calibrated radiocarbon dates gave a range of c. 4500–3000 BCE for the earliest levels. Many of the houses here were made of mud-bricks built over stone foundations. Artefacts included ground celts, microliths, saddle querns and mullers, ring stones, and bone tools. Terracotta spindle-whorls and female and bull figurines (some painted) were found. There was evidence of the cultivation of barley. Bones of sheep, goats, cattle, and buffalo were found, as were freshwater molluscs and chank shells from the coast. There were two main types of pottery. One was a coarse handmade pottery with a black slip on the outside and a burnished pinkish buff to cream-slipped interior, with designs (including representations of goats) painted on in black or brown. The body of the other type of pottery had a rusticated surface (i.e., roughened with a thick slurry of clay); sometimes the neck-and-shoulder portion were left smooth and unroughened and were decorated with painting.

In the northern part of the Punjab province of Pakistan, the site of Sarai Khola, lying on the edge of the Potwar plateau, revealed a neolithic occupation going back to about the 4th millennium BCE. The site was excavated in 1968–71 by the Pakistan Archaeological Department. Here, in Period I, there

was a handmade plain red or brown burnished pottery with mat impressions on the base. There were ground and polished stone celts, blades, microliths, and lots of bone points. Terracotta wheels and toy carts were also found.

The 5 ha site of Nal, located in the Khozdar area which links north and south Baluchistan, was first excavated in 1925. Some of the structures discovered here were made of boulders from a nearby riverbed, while others were made of stone quarried from the nearby hills. Several burials were found, most of them fractional burials in pots, but there were also some complete skeletons laid out in clearly defined and sometimes undefined graves. There was one instance of a child buried in a grave consisting of a small mud-brick chamber with grave goods including a bead necklace and crystal pendant.

The typical Nal pottery was polychrome and includes a variety of shapes, many with disc bases— ovoid, narrow-mouthed pots; carinated pots with a narrow mouth; almost straight-walled jars; open bowls; carinated bowls with an inward-turning upper body; and canisters with a flat bottom and a round, straight-edged mouth. Geometric and naturalistic designs (including fish and ibex) were painted onto the pots in blue, red, and/or yellow. The many artefacts found at Nal included stone balls, discs, ring stones and grinding stones; silver foil; beads made of agate, crystal, carnelian, lapis lazuli, and paste; and cattle figurines. Several copper objects and an adze made of copper alloyed with nickel and lead were also found. There are no radiocarbon dates from the site, but Nal pottery is considered contemporaneous with that of Periods I and II at Damb Sadaat and Period IV of Anjira and Siah Damb.

Nal-related sites are associated with two types of water management systems. One was the building of stone embankments across hill slopes to block soil washed down by rains; crops were grown on such terraces after the rains were over. The second was a system wherein water that accumulated in low-lying basins was channelized into fields through a system of small dams and canals.

Kulli in the Kolwa tract is a 12 ha site, only the upper levels of which have been excavated. Here, there were multi-roomed stone structures. The artefacts included stone querns and rubbing stones, beads made of semi-precious stones such as lapis lazuli, agate, and carnelian, bone bangles, and a small quantity of copper, gold, and glass. The Kulli pottery is profusely ornamented; a typical motif is cattle with an elongated body and large round eyes, usually set in a landscape. Analogous remains have been found at the sites of Mehi, Niai Buthi, Adam Buthi, Nindowari, and Edith Shahr. Adam Buthi, dated 3500–3000 BCE, is the earliest of these sites.

Bala Kot is a 2.8 ha site on the Makran coast of south Baluchistan, at the mouth of the Windar river. Period I represented a neolithic occupation dated from the late 5th to early 3rd millennium BCE. The houses were made of mud-bricks. Some of the wheel-made pottery was similar to that found at Nal. Microliths, terracotta figurines of humped bulls, beads (of stone, lapis lazuli, shell, and paste), terracotta, shell, and bone artefacts, and a small number of copper objects were found. There is evidence of the cultivation of barley and the domestication of cattle, sheep, and goats. The bones of buffalo, deer, pig, and hare were found. Apart from Bala Kot, there are other early village sites in the Makran area, such as Miri Qalat and Shahi Tump.

In the Cholistan desert of Bahawalpur, a number of early village settlements are located on the alluvial plain of the Ghaggar-Hakra river. This river flowed to the east of the Indus, and although it is now dried up, it must once have been a mighty stream. The typical handmade and wheel-made

pottery found at the earliest settlements in this area included large and small vessels with a coating of mud mixed with pieces of pottery applied to the outer surface; thick and thin pottery with multiple incised lines; and carinated or globular vases with a black slip on the exterior. These pots are known as Hakra wares, and the sites where they are found are known as Hakra wares sites.

M. R. Mughal’s (1997) research in this area has revealed that the Hakra settlements go back to the middle of the 4th millennium BCE, if not earlier. As many as 99 Hakra wares sites have so far been identified. They range from small settlements below 5 ha to fairly large ones of 20–30 ha. About 52 per cent of the sites seem to be camp sites, while 45 per cent appear to represent more permanent settlements. Some seem to have been centres of craft specialization. Artefacts found at Hakra wares sites include microliths, grinding stones, terracotta cattle figurines, bangles made of shell and terracotta, and pieces of copper. Bits of copper were found at Valwali, a site where 32 terracotta figurines, including those of the humped bull, were found.

Hakra wares have also been found outside the Ghaggar-Hakra valley, for instance at Jalilpur in the Punjab plains of Pakistan, near the left bank of the Ravi. Period I at this site gave evidence of Hakra wares in association with artefacts such as beads of stone, gold, coral and semi-precious stones, chert blades, and bone points. Terracotta net sinkers (used to weigh one end of the fishing net to keep it under water) indicate that fishing was an important part of the subsistence base of the people. Bone remains of sheep, goat, cattle, and gazelle were also found.

FIGURE 3.4 NAL POTTERY (AFTER HARGREAVES, 1929)

Harappa, on the banks of the Ravi, has given evidence of an early period designated the Ravi aspect of the Hakra phase, dated c. 3500/3300–2800 BCE (Meadow and Kenoyer, 2001). Remains of a small village with huts made of wooden posts and walls of plastered reeds were identified. Some mud-brick fragments of what may have been a kiln were found, but there was no evidence of mud-brick structures. Other artefacts included pottery, stone and bone tools, broken necklaces, terracotta spindle whorls, steatite beads, and bangles made of shell and terracotta. The most important evidence were potsherds with pre-firing marks and post-firing graffiti representing the formative stage of the Harappan script.

FIGURE 3.5 KULLI POTTERY FROM NINDOWARI (AFTER CASAL, 1966)

Period IA at Kunal in Hissar district of Haryana has also yielded Hakra wares. In the early level, the settlement was small (about 1 ha). Pottery designs included pipal leaves and a bull with very curved horns. Artefacts included bone tools, micro-blades made of chalcedony, copper fishhooks and arrowheads. People built their houses on an artificially raised area. House floors were made by digging a pit and paving it with rammed earth. The floors were below ground level and walls were plastered with mud. Post-holes around the circumference show the places where wooden posts supported a wattle-and-daub superstructure. No radiocarbon dates are so far available from Kunal.

Bhirrana is a recently excavated site in the Fatehabad district of Haryana (Rao et al., 2004–05).

Period IA belongs to the Hakra wares culture. People lived in shallow mud-plastered pit dwellings varying from 34 to 58 cm in depth and 230 to 340 cm in diameter. Apart from dwelling pits, pits used for sacrifices or industrial activity and refuse pits were also identified. In addition to the typical Hakra wares, there were other types of pottery such as mud applique ware, incised ware, tan slipped/chocolate slipped ware, black burnished ware, brown on buff ware, bi-chrome wares, black-and-red ware, and red wares. The artefacts included beads of carnelian, agate, jasper, and lapis lazuli; plain and painted terracotta bangles; sling balls of sandstone and terracotta; an unbaked triangular cake; a sandstone quern and pestle; a crucible; a clay hopscotch; and a chert blade and bone point.

THE VINDHYAN FRINGES AND OTHER AREAS

The reason why so much detail has been given about early agricultural villages in the north-west is because there is much more data about this zone compared to other areas. However, another early centre of agricultural–pastoral communities lay in the Vindhyan fringes in southern Uttar Pradesh, where over 40 neolithic sites have been identified in the course of explorations in the Belan, Adwa, Son, Rihand, Ganga, Lapari, and Paisuni rivers. Neolithic levels have been identified at several excavated sites such as Koldihwa, Mahagara, Pachoh, and Indari. The key issues are those of dates

and whether the rice remains that have been found at several sites belong to wild or domesticated varieties.

The neolithic culture in this area emerged out of a well-established mesolithic phase. Some of the mesolithic features such as microlith blades and the range of heavier stone tools continued, but there are also important new features such as the domestication of cattle and the cultivation of rice. Reference was made in the previous chapter to the discovery of wild rice at mesolithic levels at Chopani Mando in the Belan valley. Recently, domesticated rice has been reported from mesolithic levels at Damdama as well. The fact that wild rice is found in the area even today shows that it fell within the natural habitat zone of this cereal, and this explains the early dates for the domestication of rice.

MAP 3.3 EARLY CENTRES OF AGRICULTURE IN THE SUBCONTINENT

Koldihwa and Mahagara (both in Allahabad district, UP) are two important excavated sites, located on the northern fringes of the Vindhyas on the banks of the Belan river. Koldihwa showed cultural continuity from the neolithic to the iron age. Remains of rice and impressions of rice husk embedded in pieces of burnt clay were found here at neolithic levels. The examination of rice imprints on pottery suggests that the people were familiar both with wild rice and cultivated rice (Oryza sativa). Other discoveries included stone blades, polished stone celts, microliths (mostly

made on chert), querns and mullers (used for grinding), and bone tools. The pottery was handmade and consisted of three varieties—net-marked or cord-marked pottery; a plain red pottery; and a black-and-red ware. Deep bowls and storage jars were the dominant shapes. Some of the red ware showed soot marks, suggesting that these pots may have been used for cooking. There is currently a debate about the dates of the neolithic phase at Koldihwa. Three of the calibrated C-14 dates from the site are early and fall between the 8th and 6th millennium BCE (7505–7033, 6190–5764, 5432– 5051), but the other dates are much later.

Mahagara on the right bank of the Belan river (not far from the mesolithic site of Chopani Mando) is another important neolithic site. Floors and post-holes associated with 20 huts were identified here. Reed or bamboo impressions on clumps of mud suggest that hut walls were made of wattle and daub. There were neolithic stone blades, microliths, celts, querns, mullers, and sling balls on floors. Pottery, bone arrowheads, terracotta beads, and animal bones were also found at the site. An interesting discovery was a cattle pen (about 12.5 × 7.5 m) located in the middle of the settlement. This was irregular in plan, with a fence marked by 20 post-holes and spaces left for at least three openings. Inside the fenced area were clusters of hoof marks left by cattle of different ages. The number of such marks suggests that about 40–60 animals may have been penned here. Rows of hoof marks of sheep or goats were also found outside the pen, near the huts, suggesting the frequent movement of animals between the huts and the enclosure. Animal bones included those of cattle, sheep, goat, horse, deer, and wild boar, out of which the first three seem to have been domesticated. The botanical remains included rice husk embedded in pottery. The bone and plant remains suggest that people hunted wild animals, collected wild plant food, and domesticated plants and animals.

The site of Kunjhun is in the Son valley in Sidhi district of Madhya Pradesh, not far from Koldihwa. The neolithic settlement here, which goes back to the 4th millennium BCE, yielded wild and domesticated rice. Kunjhun seems to have been a factory site specializing in the making of stone artefacts. Archaeologists identified several areas where stone was heated to improve its colour and workability and then made into blades.

Taken together, the evidence from Koldihwa and other sites in its vicinity suggests that the northern fringes of the Vindhyas constituted an early, independent centre of rice domestication. Early agricultural settlements also spread into the central Ganga plain. This is indicated by recent excavations (Tiwari et al., 2001–02) at Lahuradeva in Sant Kabir Nagar district in eastern Uttar Pradesh. The 220 × 140 m mound here stands about 4 m above the surrounding plain, surrounded by a lake on three sides. The site revealed a five-fold cultural sequence from the neolithic to the early centuries CE. Neolithic Period I was sub-divided into Periods IA and IB. In Period IA, there was a cord-impressed red ware and a black-and-red ware. The pots were mostly handmade, with a few wheel-made specimens. Small burnt clay pieces showed that people lived in wattle-and-daub houses. The plant remains included rice and a few wild grasses. Husk marks of rice were found embedded in the core of several potsherds. The rice appears to be a domesticated variety. The calibrated dates for Period IA at Lahuradeva fall within the late 6th and early 5th millennia BCE.

Although the evidence is at the moment neither absolutely clear nor substantial, there is a possibility that there were other zones in the Indian subcontinent which saw an early transition from hunting-gathering to agriculture and pastoralism. In Ladakh, the neolithic site of Giak has given a radiocarbon date belonging to the 6th millennium BCE. However, nearby Kiari does not go back beyond c. 1000 BCE.

Pollen studies of the salt lakes of Didwana, Lunkaransar, and Sambhar in Rajasthan indicate a marked increase in cereal-type pollen in this area in c. 7000 BCE. This, along with the discovery of tiny charcoal pieces, may indirectly suggest the clearance of forests and the beginning of agriculture. However, no food-producing sites of such an early date have so far been identified in the area.

Cereal pollen in c. 8000 BCE contexts has also been found in the Nilgiri hills in South India. In the Horton plains of central Sri Lanka, pollen analysis suggests incipient cereal plant management along with slash-and-burn techniques of cultivation in c. 17500 BP, and the cultivation of oats and barley in c. 13000 BP.

NEOLITHIC, NEOLITHIC–CHALCOLITHIC, AND CHALCOLITHIC COMMUNITIES, C. 3000–2000 BCE

During c. 3000–2000 BCE, village settlements spread to new areas. It can be noted that these settlements were roughly contemporaneous with the urban Harappan civilization, which is the subject of the next chapter. The volume of information for this period is more substantial than for the preceding millennia, and certain distinctive characteristics of the various geographical zones can now be identified.

THE NORTH AND NORTH-WEST

In the Kashmir valley, there are several neolithic sites near Srinagar and between Baramulla and Anantnag. These include Burzahom, Gufkral, Hariparigom, Jayadeviudar, Olchibag, Pampur, Panzgom, Sombur, Thajiwor, Begagund, Waztal, Gurhoma Sangri, and Damodara. During the Pleistocene era, the Kashmir valley was a gigantic lake and the neolithic sites are located on the remnants of the ancient lake beds known as karewas.

Burzahom, one of the important excavated sites in this region, is located on a terrace of karewa clay above the flood plain of the Jhelum river, 16 km north-east of Srinagar. The site offers a beautiful view of green fields and the Dal lake, which is only about 2 km away. Burzahom is a Kashmiri word meaning ‘place of birch’, and the discovery of burnt birch in the excavations indicates that birch trees grew in the area in neolithic times as well. The site must have been surrounded by forests, with water close by, and the neolithic people must have cut down some of the trees in order to establish their settlement.

The site was discovered in 1935 by de Terra and Paterson, who thought it belonged to the Harappan civilization. Its real significance was understood much later, when excavations were carried out by the Archaeological Survey of India in 1960–71 under T. N. Khazanchi. There are four periods of occupation at Burzahom. The first two are neolithic, the third megalithic, and the fourth early historical. Period I was dated by the radiocarbon method to before c. 2920 BCE.

A distinguishing feature of Period I at Burzahom is the presence of mud-plastered pit dwellings. Most of the pits were round or oval, narrower at the top and widening out towards the base. The largest is 3.96 m deep, with a diameter of 2.74 m at the top and 4.57 m at the bottom. Post-holes around the circumference of the pits at ground level show where wooden poles would have supported a roof made of pinewood thatched with birch. Some of the deeper pits had a few steps, but these did not extend to the bottom, perhaps because this would have narrowed the space too much. Ladders may also have been used to climb in and out of the deeper pits. Charcoal, ash, potsherds, and hearths made of stone or clay were found inside the pits. There were some square and rectangular pit chambers too, about 1 m deep. One of them measured 6.4 × 7 m. Some of the pit

chambers had stone or clay hearths. It is interesting to note that the square/rectangular pit chambers were found in the centre of the settlement, while the round/oval ones were at the periphery. Close to the living pits were smaller storage pits with a 60–91 cm diameter, containing stone and bone tools and animal bones. Stone hearths near the mouths of some of the dwelling pits suggest that people also lived in the open at ground level, probably during the warm summers.

NEOLITHIC STONE TOOLS, BURZAHOM

NEW DIRECTIONS IN RESEARCH

Did people actually live in the Burzahom pits?

Pits have been found at neolithic levels at Burzahom and Gufkral in Kashmir and at Loebanr III and Kalako-deray in the Swat valley. They have generally been interpreted as winter homes of neolithic people. The steps, ash, charcoal, and potsherds in them have been cited as proof of the fact that people lived here. Pit dwellings are seen as a strategy adopted by neolithic people to cope with the harsh Kashmir winter. It is presumed that people moved to the ground level in summer.

Recently, this interpretation has been questioned by R. A. E. Conningham and T. L. Sutherland on the basis of a fresh analysis of pits found at British iron age sites. The British iron age pits were once considered dwellings, but some scholars have rejected this idea. Experiments carried out by P. J. Reynolds showed that as soon as a fire was lit inside such a pit, the atmosphere became intolerably thick with smoke. It is also argued that the lighting of fires inside the pits does not necessarily indicate domestic activities such as cooking or an attempt to warm the living space. The firing of pits could have been in order to prolong their life, to clear mould or damp, or to

speed up the drying of the mud plaster. Moreover, if the pits were dwelling units where fires were regularly lit, their sides should have been black with soot, but this was not the case. An alternative explanation of the British iron age pits is that they may have been underground grain storage units.

Conningham and Sutherland suggest that it may be time to reconsider the function of the Kashmir– Swat pits as well. They argue that sites such as Burzahom may not have been occupied all year round, with people living in pits in the winters and moving to ground level in summer. They may have been occupied only during spring and summer, and abandoned during the winter. After the harvest, surplus grain could have been stored and sealed in the underground pits. When winter set in, people may have migrated to the less severely cold areas of the plains or the lower valleys, leaving the sealed grain to be used for sowing next spring.

While the majority opinion among scholars currently interprets the Kashmir–Swat pits as dwellings, the hypothesis cited above shows how the same evidence can be interpreted in a different way.

SOURCE Conningham and Sutherland, 1997

Other finds of Period I at Burzahom included ill-fired, handmade, coarse pottery in grey, red, brown, and buff colours. The shapes included simple rimless bowls and bottle-shapes with flared rims. Mat impressions on the base of many of the pots showed that they were made on mats. The stone tools included oval and oblong stone axes (some pecked and ground), chisels, adzes, grinding stones, ring stones, and mace heads. Also found were ‘harvesters’—distinctive rectangular stone choppers or knives with two or more holes on the blunt side. Burzahom had a well-developed bone tool industry; artefacts such as points, harpoons, needles (with and without eyes), awls (probably for stitching animal skins), spear heads, daggers, and scrapers were found here. Tools were also made from antlers. No burials were found in Period I, suggesting that people may have adopted some other method of disposal of the dead.

In Period II, the people of Burzahom moved out of the pits and built houses on ground level. Some pits were filled up with karewa soil, their surface plastered with mud and covered with a thin layer of red ochre. These formed the floors of huts made of mud, mud-brick, and timber. Several burials were found in Period II, mostly within the habitation area. The dead were usually buried under house floors or in the compounds, in oval pits plastered with lime. Both inhumation and secondary burials were practised. In the case of secondary burials, the bones were sometimes covered with red ochre. In the primary burials, the body was placed in a flexed position. Apart from the occasional beads around the neck of some of the bodies, there were usually no grave goods. Holes in one of the skulls gave evidence of trepanning (boring holes in skulls). Period II at Burzahom continued till at least c.1700 BCE.

BURZAHOM: BONE TOOLS INCLUDING NEEDLE WITH EYE

BONE ARROWHEAD

PERFORATED HARVESTER

An interesting feature of Period II of neolithic Burzahom is that humans were sometimes buried along with wild animals such as deer, wolf, ibex, nilgai, snow leopard, and pig, and domesticated animals such as cattle, buffalo, dog, sheep, and goat. The animals may have been killed and buried along with the deceased humans or their meat may have been placed in the grave as part of the grave goods. The interment of dogs with humans suggests that pets were sometimes buried along with their masters. There were also separate pit burials for animals within the habitation area. In one case, five dogs were buried along with antlers.

FIGURE 3.6 BURZAHOM POTTERY

Artefacts from Period II included pottery, mostly handmade. There were a few new shapes and a black burnished pottery, which seems to have been a deluxe ware. The shapes included dish with hollow stand, globular pots, jars, stems with triangular perforations, and a funnel-shaped vase. A distinctive type in the black burnished ware is a high-necked jar with a flaring rim, globular body, and base, with oblique notches incised on the lower part of the neck. Stone and bone tools continued, similar to those of Period I, but they were more numerous and had a better finish. The stone tools included harvesters. A single copper arrowhead was found towards the end of Period II. Microwear analysis of Burzahom neolithic tools (Pant, 1979) has shown that the tools were often re-ground and re-shaped. Some of the handaxes had clearly been used for cutting, chopping, and dressing wood, while others were probably used for chopping meat. Pant’s study also showed that the ring stones functioned as mace heads.

Two engraved stone slabs were found in Burzahom Period II. The engraving on one of these is indistinct. Its pattern has been tentatively identified as a hut with a thatched conical roof, to the right of which is the hind portion of some sort of animal, whose tail can be seen clearly. The other engraving is clearer (see (< />)p. 129). It covers an area of 48 × 27 cm of a stone slab and depicts a hunting scene. A stag with large antlers is being pierced from behind by a (female?) hunter with a long spear, while another hunter shoots an arrow at it from the front.

Hunting and fishing were important parts of the lives of the neolithic people of Burzahom. This is clear from the animal bones, the engraved hunting scene, and the high percentage of weapons such as spearheads, arrowheads, and harpoons. Initially, there was no direct evidence of agriculture from the site, and scholars interpreted harvesters, stone querns, flake knives, mace heads, and seeds of wild plants as indirect evidence of some level of cultivation. However, more recently, an analysis of botanical remains from different strata of Periods I and II has provided direct evidence of cultivated wheat, barley, and lentils (Lens culinaris).

The distinctive features of the Kashmir neolithic include a wide range of stone and bone tools, pit dwellings, perforated ‘harvesters’, and animal burials. Some of these features also occur at sites in central Asia and China. A wheel-made red pot containing 950 beautiful agate and carnelian beads was found in the early levels of Period II. Another globular pot had the painting of what seems to be a horned deity, a motif which occurs at early Harappan levels at Kot Diji. This suggests some contact between the neolithic communities of Burzahom and the Indus area.

BURNISHED GLOBULAR JAR WITH LONG NECK, BURZAHOM

DECORATED STONE HARVESTER, GUFKRAL

The cultural sequence at Gufkral (41 km south-east of Srinagar, near Tral) extends from the neolithic to the historical period. Period I of the sequence is neolithic and is divided into three sub-phases: Period IA, IB, and IC. There is a calibrated date of 2468– 2139 BCE from Period IB, so Period IA could go back to c. 3000 BCE or even earlier. As at Burzahom, here too, in Period I, there were pit dwellings, circular or oval, wide at the base and narrower above, varying in diameter from 3.80 to 1.50 m at the top. The larger dwelling pits mostly belonged to the earlier phase and were only 20 to 30 cm deep. The dwelling pits were surrounded by storage pits and hearths. Post-holes around the pits and hearths indicated the places where wooden posts were erected to support a superstructure of grass and reed. The bases of houses may have been plastered with mud to prevent the entry of water and snow. In the earlier dwelling pits of Period IA, floors were plastered with red ochre paste. Some pits were subsequently enlarged, and there were also two-chambered dwelling pits. In the early part of Period IA, hearths were rectangular in shape, while in the later phase, circular and rectangular hearths of clay were found. Interestingly, no hearth or fireplace was found inside the dwelling pits.

Period IA at Gufkral was a-ceramic. The finds included polished stone tools and a large quern with ochre paste sticking to the depression in the middle. There were tools made of bone and horn, including small arrowheads and a bone needle with an eye. In most cases, the tips of bone tools were charred to strengthen the working edge. Other artefacts include steatite beads and a broken terracotta marble. Bones of wild animals—sheep, goat, cattle, red deer, Himalayan ibex (a wild goat), wolf, and bear—were found. There were also some bones of domesticated sheep and goats. The people of Gufkral were clearly heavily dependent on hunting, but were beginning to domesticate certain animals. Plant remains included barley, wheat, and lentils.

The first pottery at Gufkral appeared in Period IB. It was handmade and mostly grey (there were a few red pots), with mat impressions on the base. Big jars, bowls, and basins were the common shapes. The pit dwellings disappeared. A 5–7 cm thick compact clay floor mixed with lime was

found extending over the excavated area. There was also a mud and rubble wall and another compact 70 cm wide wall-like structure. Polished stone tools, as well as bone tools, continued.

Bones of red deer, ibex, bear, sheep, goats, cattle, and fowl occurred in Period IB. Many bones had sharp cut marks on them. The proportion of wolf bones decreased and those of dogs increased. The animal bones indicate that although hunting remained important, there was a significant increase in the domestication of sheep, goats, and cattle. The grains of Period IA continued into IB, with the addition of the common pea (Pisum arvense). The presence of large quantities of charcoal and charred wood pieces indicated the occurrence of an extensive fire. A radiocarbon date from Period IB gave a range of 2468–2139 BCE.

The upper levels of Period IC at Gufkral were dated c. 1620–1300 BCE, so the beginning of this period can be placed in c. 2000 BCE. In this phase, there were many refuse pits and dumps. Wheel-made pots appeared and included grey, burnished grey, red, and black wares. There were new shapes like long-necked jars and dish-on-stand with triangular perforated designs on the stem. There were stone querns, pounders, and double-holed harvesters. Only one neolithic celt was found. Stone and terracotta spindle whorls with large holes suggest the weaving of woollen cloth. There were terracotta bangles and potsherds with graffiti marks. One copper hairpin with a flattened spiral head was discovered. The largest number of bone tools were found in this period. Animal bones included those of domesticated sheep, goat, cattle, pig, and dog. There were also bones of fish, hare, rodents, hedgehog, and beaver. All the grains of Period IB continued in this period. Hunting continued to decline in importance and the scale of animal breeding correspondingly increased.

There are some similarities between the neolithic sites of Kashmir and those in the Swat valley in north Pakistan. The archaeological sequence in the Ghaligai cave in the Swat valley may go back to c. 3000 BCE. Here, at the lowest levels, there was coarse handmade pottery. Some pots had a slip and others a burnished interior. Pebble tools and bone points were also found. Although there are some similarities with the pottery types found at Burzahom Period I, polished stone tools are absent in the Ghaligai cave.

A number of grave sites have been explored in the Swat valley. These include Loe-banr, Aligrama, Birkot Ghundai, Kherari, Lal-batai, Timargarha, Balambat, Kalako-deray, and Zarif Karuna. Various kinds of burials have been identified—flexed burials, cremation, urn burials, fractional burials, and multiple burials. Loebanr III and Aligrama have given evidence of wheat and barley. Rice, lentils, and field or common pea were found at Loebanr III, and a grape seed (Vitis vinifera) was also identified. Remains of pit-dwellings, some which must have had thatched roofs on wooden superstructures, were found at Loebanr III and Kalako-deray. Jade beads found at the former site suggest exchange with central Asia.

Surface finds of neolithic axes, chisels, and ring stones occur at sites such as Ror, Baroli, and Dehra Gopipur in the Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh. These tools were found along with choppers and flake tools, but the dates of the neolithic context in this area are uncertain.

RAJASTHAN

In the areas of Rajasthan, Malwa, and the northern Deccan, the beginnings of settled life are associated with a chalcolithic rather than a neolithic phase. Reference was made in the previous chapter to Bagor in eastern Rajasthan; this site shows a transition from the hunting-gathering mesolithic phase to a chalcolithic and then an iron age phase. Much more substantial evidence of

early sedentary chalcolithic sites comes from areas rich in copper ores. Copper ores occur in many parts of India—Rajasthan, Gujarat, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Andhra Pradesh, but the richest mines are in Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Bihar. There is evidence of the use of copper in certain parts of the subcontinent from about 3000 BCE onwards.

Many of the protohistoric cultures discussed in this and the subsequent sections are named after sites where they were first discovered. Archaeological cultures are also sometimes named after a pottery type. This does not mean that this is the only pottery type that occurs, simply that it is a diagnostic type. Cultures can also be named after the region in which they are concentrated. This does not necessarily mean that their sites are not found outside that particular area. For instance, Malwa culture sites are also found outside Malwa in Maharashtra. Similarly, some Ahar culture sites are found in Malwa, outside their nuclear zone in south-east Rajasthan. These are all archaeological cultures, sharing a range of associated material remains. What else they shared, apart from material culture, is a matter of interpretation.

MAP 3.4 THREE MAJOR CHALCOLITHIC SITES OF RAJASTHAN

The Ganeshwar–Jodhpura culture was located in the north-eastern part of Rajasthan. Over 80 sites of this culture have so far been identified. The largest concentration is in Sikar district, but sites also occur in neighbouring Jaipur and Jhunjhunu districts. The site concentration can be connected with the copper ore resources of the Baleshwar and Khetri areas, where traces of ancient copper working have been found. The Ahar culture was located in the south-eastern part of Rajasthan. The profiles of

these sites show that they were part of an important process of metallurgical growth in Rajasthan, the roots of which go back to the 4th millennium BCE.

Jodhpura, on the banks of the Sahibi river, is the first site where evidence of the Ganeshwar– Jodhpura culture was identified. The typical pottery here is wheel-made, orange to red in colour, with incised designs. Shapes include dish-on-stand with a thick slip. The calibrated dates from Jodhpura range between 3309–2709 BCE and 2879–2348 BCE.

Pottery similar to that found at Jodhpura was later discovered at Ganeshwar, near Nim-ka-Thana. There are three cultural phases at Ganeshwar. The dates for Period I are from c. 3800 BCE onwards, Period II from c. 2800 BCE, and Period III from c. 2000 BCE. Period I reflects a hunting-gathering community using microliths made of chert and quartz. Charred bones, almost all belonging to wild animals, were found. The lower levels of Period I showed a predominance of bones of small animals, while the higher levels were dominated by those of larger animals. Period II was marked by the beginning of metallurgy. A few copper objects were found—five arrowheads, three fishhooks, one spearhead, and one awl. People lived in circular huts with floors paved with pebbles and rock fragments. There were lots of microliths and animal bones. Both handmade and wheel-made pottery was found. There was a profusion of Ganeshwar–Jodhpura ware, a poorly fired pottery made of micaceous clay, with a bright red slip. There were also a few pots made of well-fired, well-levigated clay. Period III had a wide range of pots. Hundreds of copper objects of different types— arrowheads, spearheads, celts, chisels, rings, bangles, balls, etc.—dominated the assemblage, with a corresponding decline in the number of microliths and animal bones.

Strangely enough, the reports on Ganeshwar do not mention any direct evidence of copper smelting (furnaces, crucibles, etc.). But the hundreds of copper objects found at this small 1.2–1.6 ha site suggest that it had emerged as a copper-working centre and that its people were supplying these items to communities elsewhere. There are similarities between the wheel-made pottery of Ganeshwar Period II and early Harappan pottery. The early Harappans may have been obtaining their copper from here. This site may also have been one of the major suppliers of copper to the mature Harappan culture. Harappan pottery was found on the surface at two Ganeshwar culture sites. At Ganeshwar itself, there is a reserved slip ware which is only found in the Harappan context at Banawali and a few other places. Double spiral-headed pins from Ganeshwar have been found at some Harappan sites. All this suggests cultural contact between the Ganeshwar and Harappan cultures.

In south-east Rajasthan, over 90 sites of the Ahar or Banas culture have been identified in the Banas and Berach river systems, roughly between Udaipur and Jaipur. Some sites also occur in the Malwa plateau of Madhya Pradesh. Ahar, Gilund, and Balathal are the three excavated sites. Ahar was excavated in 1953–54 and 1961–62, Gilund in 1959–60, and Balathal in 1994–98. The typical Ahar pottery is a black-and-red ware with linear and dotted designs painted on in white. Ahar culture sites tend to be located along river banks and generally range in size from a few ha to over 10 ha. However, Ahar itself is at least 11 ha and Gilund is about 10.5 ha. Many of the sites were located within 8–17 km of each other.

Ahar is located on the outskirts of Udaipur. Period I is divided into three phases—Ia, Ib, and Ic. The earliest calibrated dates for these three phases are c. 2500 BCE, 2100 BCE, and 1900 BCE. Fifteen building phases were identified in Period I. Ordinary houses were made of mud and rested on stone foundations. Walls were strengthened by bamboo screens or quartz nodules, and roofs were

probably sloping. Floors were made of black clay mixed with yellow silt, sometimes paved with gravel from the riverbed. No complete house plan was exposed, but there were vestiges of a house, about 10.31 m long, partitioned off by a mud wall. Multiple-mouthed ovens were also found. Artefacts included microliths. There were plenty of copper objects—rings, bangles, antimony rods, a knife blade, and four socketless axes. Copper sheet and slag indicated that copper was smelted locally. Saddle querns and beads of semi-precious stones (including one made of lapis lazuli) and terracotta beads or spindle whorls were discovered. Rice grains and bones of cow, buffalo, goat, sheep, deer, pig fish, turtle, and fowl were identified.

MAP 3.5 AHAR CULTURE SITES, RAJASTHAN

An iron ring and nail occurred in Period Ib at Ahar, and iron objects (arrowhead, chisel, peg, and socket) are quite common in Period Ic. Whether the levels at which these artefacts were found were intact or disturbed is a subject of debate. There is every possibility that this constitutes one of the earliest occurrences of iron in the subcontinent.

The discoveries at Gilund were broadly similar to those at Ahar. The structural remains included a mud-brick complex, measuring about 30.48 × 24.38 m, and part of a wall made of burnt bricks resting on a foundation of stone rubble. Storage pits were also found. The artefacts included

microliths, fragments of copper, and beads of semiprecious stones. There were terracotta gamesmen and figurines of animals, including humped bulls with long horns.

Balathal in Udaipur district is an important Ahar culture site. The first phase of occupation (Period I) is relevant here. The size of the site was about 2 ha. In the early phase of Period I, there were remains of small, circular wattle-and-daub huts with mud-plastered floors and two plastered storage pits. In the later phase, a striking discovery was the remains of a massive mud fortification wall in the centre of the mound. The wall was reinforced in places with stone and there was clear evidence of bastions. The width of the walls ranged from 4.80 m to over 5.0 m, and the fortifications enclosed an area of over 500 sq m. A street (ranging from 2 to 4.8 m in width) running north-west to south-east, along with a small lane, were also exposed. In the second phase of Period I, the houses were larger rectangular units made of mud, mud-bricks, and stone, resting on stone foundations. Three multi-roomed structural complexes were discovered, within which kitchens and storage areas were identified. Two potters’ kilns were also found.

The Balathal pottery was of many different types. It included thin red, tan, black-and-red, and buff-coloured pots. There was also a reserve slip ware, in which the pots were first treated with a thin red wash and then with a thick dark red slip, on which designs were made with a comb-like instrument while the slip was still wet. The thick, coarse wares included a red-slipped ware, plain red ware, burnished grey ware, and plain grey ware. There were very few stone microliths or blades. Lots of copper artefacts were found—choppers, knives, razors, chisels, and barbed and tanged arrowheads. There were also bone tools such as points and scrapers; stone querns, grinders, and hammer stones; and terracotta balls and stylized figurines of bulls and sheep. Ornaments included necklaces made of terracotta, steatite, faience, and semiprecious stones like carnelian, agate, and jasper. There were also bangles of copper, shell, and terracotta.

The large quantity of animal bones found at Balathal included those of gaur, nilgai, chausingha, blackbuck, fowl, peafowl, turtle, fish, and molluscan shells. Wild animals accounted for only 5 per cent of the bones. Much more numerous were bones of domesticated cattle, buffalo, sheep, goat, and pig. Cattle bones constituted almost 73 per cent of the faunal remains. The plant remains included wheat, barley, at least two varieties of millet, black gram, green gram (moong), pea, linseed, and fruit such as jujube (ber). Cereals and lentils seem to have been grown in large quantities and stored in storage bins, of which several have been found. Grain was ground into flour on stone querns, and the bread was probably cooked on handmade flat pans (tawas) on u-shaped chulhas, similar to those used in the village even today. Calibrated dates indicate that the protohistoric settlement at Balathal goes back to the late 4th millennium BCE. This would make it contemporary with the early Harappan phase at Kot Diji and as early as the Jodhpura–Ganeshwar culture of north-east Rajasthan.

Sites of the Ahar culture show the use of a great variety of raw materials including steatite, shell, agate, jasper, carnelian, lapis lazuli, copper, and bronze. Although the shell objects were locally made, the shell itself must have come from the Gujarat coast. The discovery of etched carnelian beads, a lapis lazuli bead, and Rangpur-type lustrous red ware in Ahar Period IC suggest a connection with Harappan sites in Gujarat.

THE MALWA REGION

Stone celts discovered in various parts of central India may belong to a neolithic context, but the evidence has not been adequately studied. There is, however, a good deal of evidence concerning the

sequence of chalcolithic farming cultures in the Malwa region, beginning with the Kayatha culture, followed by the Ahar culture, and then the Malwa culture. Calibrated radiocarbon dates place the Kayatha culture in the second half of the 3rd millennium BCE. This culture gets its name from the site of Kayatha in Ujjain district, on the banks of the Chhoti Kali Sindh, a tributary of the Kali Sindh, which is in turn a tributary of the Chambal river.

Three types of pottery have been found at Kayatha culture sites. The typical Kayatha pottery is a fine, sturdy, wheel-made ware. It has a thick brown slip, usually from lip to shoulder, and sometimes up to the base. Linear designs are painted on in violet or deep red only on the upper part of the vessel, especially on the rim. The shapes include bowls and basins, vases with a globular profile and concave neck, and large storage jars. Other kinds of pottery associated with Kayatha ware include a buff ware with a thin, fine fabric and linear and geometric designs painted on in red. The shapes are rather limited and include lotas, high and short concave-necked jars, and basins. Thirdly, there is a red ‘combed ware’ with a fine fabric, usually without any slip or wash. It is decorated with multiple wavy and zigzag lines made with some kind of comb-like instrument. The shapes consist only of bowls and basins.

As the Kayatha excavations were restricted in scope, no complete house plans were uncovered. But houses were apparently made of mud and reed with mud-plastered floors. The bones of domesticated cattle and horses were found, and the people seem to have eaten tortoises. No grain remains were identified. There was a rich repertoire of stone and copper artefacts. The stone tools included plenty of microliths (blades, points, lunates, etc.) made out of locally available chalcedony. A mace head or ring stone may have been used as an agricultural implement for turning soil. The people were well versed in copper technology. There were two copper axes cast in moulds, a fragmentary chisel, and 28 copper bangles found in two pots. Two beautiful necklaces made of agate and carnelian beads (and one faceted crystal) were discovered in two pots—one consisting of 175, the other of 160 beads. Another pot contained 40,000 steatite micro-beads, strung in threads. The copper axes, bangles, and necklaces were all found in a small area of what must have been a house. It seems that the people who lived here had to leave suddenly, abandoning their valuable possessions on the floor.

Kayatha ware is similar in some respects to early Harappan pottery, and there is also a similarity in the steatite micro-beads of these two cultures. The axes found at Kayatha have indentation marks that are similar to those found on Ganeshwar specimens, and it is quite possible that they came from Ganeshwar. All this suggests connections, whose precise nature is difficult to determine. There was an abrupt break in occupation at Kayatha in about 1800 BCE, and the site remained deserted for about a century. When reoccupied, it represented an Ahar/Banas culture phase.

THE WESTERN DECCAN

The earliest farming culture in the western Deccan is the Savalda culture, named after the site of this name in the Tapi valley. This culture goes back to the 3rd millennium BCE, and its sites are found between the Tapi and Godavari rivers in north Maharashtra. The typical Savalda ware is a wheel-made chocolate-coloured pottery, of medium to coarse fabric, with a thick, crackled slip. The variety of shapes includes the high-necked jar, dish, dish-on-stand, bowl, basin, ring stand, vase, beaker, and knobbed lid. A remarkable aspect of Savalda pottery is that the designs painted over the thick, crackled slip include tools, weapons, and geometric motifs.

Kaothe is a site belonging to the Savalda culture. It is a 20 ha site, and the shallow 50 cm thick deposit suggests a short-duration, nomadic occupation. The houses seem to have been round or oval, with a sloping roof. Many bone tools and beads made of shell, opal, carnelian, and terracotta were found. Bones of wild deer and domesticated cattle, buffalo, sheep/goat, and dog were identified. Plant remains included a variety of millet and two kinds of pulses—gram and moong. The pottery consisted of a sturdy ware with geometric and naturalistic designs.

Daimabad on the banks of the Pravara river (a tributary of the Godavari) in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra also has a Savalda culture phase. The evidence here did not indicate a semi-nomadic community. There were mud houses, some large and multi-roomed, with hearths, storage pits, and jars. Sometimes there were courtyards in front, and a lane has been traced in one place. The excavations yielded microliths, bone and stone artefacts, and a few beads of shell, carnelian, steatite, and terracotta. A phallus-shaped object made of agate was found inside a house. Plant remains included wheat, barley, pea, lentil, black gram, and green gram.

THE MIDDLE GANGA PLAIN AND EASTERN INDIA

In a previous section, reference was made to early evidence of food-producing settlements in the northern Vindhyan fringes at Koldihwa, Mahagara, and Kunjhun, and in the middle Ganga valley at Lahuradeva. Sites of a subsequent period have been found in the Sarayupara plain in the northeastern part of Uttar Pradesh. This is part of the middle Ganga plain, bound on the south and west by the Ghagara and on the east by the Gandak, extending up to the foothills of the Himalayas. An important site in this area is Sohagaura in the Bansgaon sub-division of Gorakhpur district, at the confluence of the Rapti and Ami rivers. The village lies on a mound about 60 ha in area. Excavations in the 1960s and 1970s brought out a six-fold cultural sequence at Sohagaura, ranging from the neolithic (Period I) to the medieval (Period VI). The remains of Period I included small pieces of ill-fired, handmade pottery with a coarse or medium fabric, most of the sherds either rusticated or cord impressed.

There are several neolithic and neolithic-chalcolithic sites in the alluvial plains of north Bihar. Five have been excavated—Chirand, Senuar, Chechar-Kutubpur, Maner, and Taradih. All these sites mark 3rd/2nd millennium BCE villages located on the banks of streams and show the presence of full-fledged agricultural villages in the Gangetic plains of Bihar. Chirand (in Saran district) is a huge mound, about 1 km long, situated at the confluence of the Sarayu and Ganga rivers. A 3.5 m thick occupational deposit was excavated here. The beginning of the occupation may go back to before the mid-3rd millennium BCE. Stone celts and hammer stones were made out of quartzite, basalt, and granite. Various other kinds of tools, pestles, querns, and balls were found. Microlithic blades and points were made from materials like chalcedony, chert, agate, and jasper. There were a large number and variety of bone and antler implements such as celts, scrapers, chisels, hammers, needles, points, borers, awls, diggers, and pins. Bone ornaments included pendants, earrings, bangles, discs, and combs, and there were also bangles made of tortoise bone and ivory.

The pottery of neolithic Chirand included red, grey, and black wares. There was also a black-and-red ware. Most of the pottery was handmade, though there were some examples of the turntable method. Some pots had painted (usually red ochre) and scratched designs on their surface, generally linear or geometric. The exterior of many grey pots was burnished. The shapes included various kinds of vases and bowls. There were different varieties of beads of agate, carnelian, jasper, marble,

steatite, and faience—long tubular, long barrel, short barrel, cylindrical, triangular, and disc-shaped. Some of them were unfinished, indicating they were locally made. No copper objects were found. Terracotta figurines included representations of humped bulls, birds, and snakes. There were also terracotta beads, bangles, wheels, balls, and what seem to be two fragments of a brooch. A small perforated stem had traces of soot inside—perhaps it was a smoking pipe. A few terracotta discs with holes in the centre may have been spindle whorls.

MAP 3.6 VILLAGE SETTLEMENTS IN THE MIDDLE GANGA PLAIN

The neolithic people of Chirand lived in circular wattle-and-daub huts with rammed floors. In the early stage, floors were below ground level, but later they were at ground level. Hearths were found in the houses. A semi-circular hut had several oblong ovens, perhaps for community cooking. Mud boundary walls of houses were traced. Burnt chunks of clay with reed or bamboo impressions suggest that the houses were destroyed by a fire. Plant remains included rice, wheat, barley, and lentils such as moong and masoor. Lots of bones of animals, birds, and fish were identified, indicating the prevalence of hunting and fishing. Clusters of fish scales and remains of river shells and snails give additional information on the food habits of the people. Animal remains included bones of wild elephants, rhinoceros, and deer, and those of domesticated cattle. Chirand had a later, chalcolithic occupation level as well.

Chechar-Kutubpur is a site located on the banks of the Ganga, across the river from Patna, near Biddupur. The neolithic deposit here was divided into three phases (A, B, and C) on the basis of changes in pottery. People lived in circular wattle-and-daub huts with mud floors. There were hearths in the centre of the floors. Lots of bone and antler tools and micro-beads of steatite and chalcedony were found here.

The ancient mound of Senuar (Singh, 2003) is in on the banks of the Kudra river at the foot of the Kaimur range, in Rohtas district of Bihar, not far from Sasaram. There are four periods of occupation at the site: Period I is neolithic, Period II chalcolithic, Period III represented the Northern Black Polished Ware (NBPW) culture, and Period IV belongs to the early centuries CE. The lower levels of Period IB were dated by radiocarbon to c. 1770–1400 BCE; therefore the beginning of Period IA probably goes back to the latter half of the 3rd millennium BCE. Here we are concerned with Period I, which is divided into Periods IA and IB.

Period IA at Senuar was a 1.5 m thick neolithic deposit with remains of wattle-and-daub houses. There were three main kinds of pottery—a red ware, burnished red ware, and burnished grey ware. Some of the pottery was rusticated, some had designs made by cord impressions. The shapes included the wide-mouthed shallow bowl, channelled bowl, vase, and spouted vessels. Most of the pottery was wheel-made, but there was also some handmade pottery. Lots of microliths (small bladelets, also flakes and blades) made of chert, chalcedony, agate, quartz, and quartzite were found. There were a few triangular polished celts, stone pestles, saddle querns, hammer stones, and sling balls of various sizes. Bone tools included points, with use marks at the tip. Beads of semi-precious stones were also discovered.

The animal bones from Senuar have been carefully studied. The domesticated animals included cattle, buffalo, sheep, goat, pig, cat, and dog. Wild animals included nilgai, antelope, and chital. The charring and cut marks on many of the bones showed that the animals were killed for food. That the people ate shell food from the river is clear from the remains of molluscs and large numbers of shells. Considering that the site is on the banks of a river, it is odd that no fish bones were reported. Carbonized grains show that people grew two crops a year. Rice (Oryza sativa) was the main crop, but people also grew barley, dwarf wheat (Triticum sphaerococcum), sorghum millet, ragi millet, lentil, grass pea (Lathyrus sativus), and field pea (Pisum arvense).

Period IB at Senuar was neolithic–chalcolithic and consisted of a 2.02 m thick deposit. House floors were made of well-rammed earth mixed with kankar and potsherds, and there were marks of post-holes in some places. Nineteen copper objects were found, including a fishhook, wire, some rings, a broken needle, and several broken and indeterminate objects. There was also a fragmentary lead rod. Chemical analysis of the copper wire showed that it was made of almost pure copper and that the metal was probably obtained from the neighbouring Rakha mines. The artefacts of Period IB were more or less similar to those of Period IA, but there was a marked improvement in the pottery, especially in surface treatment. Although most of the pots were wheel-made, there were some handmade pieces as well. The vessels had a fine slip and a high grade of burnishing. Post-firing red ochre coloured paintings—earlier only found on the burnished grey ware—were now also found on the burnished red ware. Painted decoration was much more frequent, and pots were often also decorated with thumb or finger impressions, rope, or notched patterns on appliqué bands of clay.

There were more stone tools in Period IB than in the earlier phase, including many polished stone celts, mostly made of black basalt. Microliths were also found in large numbers. The material of the tools was the same as in Period IA, but there were a few new shapes. Shell ornaments included triangular pendants. There were lots of finished and unfinished beads of semi-precious stones such as agate, carnelian, and jasper. Twenty-five faience beads were also found. Terracotta artefacts included beads, pottery discs, a bull figurine, and maybe a whistle. Some of the pottery discs may have been wheels for toys or gaming counters used by children. Those with holes may represent

spindle whorls. Apart from the grains that continued from Period I, in Period IB, there were some more plant remains—those of bread wheat (Triticum aestivum), chickpea or gram (Cicer arictinum), and moong (Vigna radiata). There are some cultural similarities between neolithic Chirand and Senuar.

The site of Maner is located on the banks of an old course of the Ganga, not far from Patna. The neolithic deposit here was 3.45 m thick and yielded handmade red ware and burnished red and grey wares. The shapes included the long-necked vase, bowl with short stem, lipped bowl, and spouted bowl. Other artefacts included stone microliths, bone points, and terracotta spindle whorls.

Taradih is situated close to the Mahabodhi temple at Bodh Gaya. There are two phases of the neolithic occupation here—Period IA had hand-made burnished and un-burnished red wares and cord-impressed wares. Period IB was marked by a handmade burnished grey ware, sometimes with post-firing ochre-coloured painting. The other artefacts included neolithic celts, microliths, and bone tools. There were remains of wattle-and-daub houses with hearths. Bones of cattle, goat, buffalo, pig, sheep, deer, bird, fish, and snail were identified. Plant remains included grains of rice, wheat, and barley.

Neolithic tools—ring stones, shouldered celts, and triangular and rectangular axes—have been found in various parts of West Bengal, but the dates of the finds remain uncertain. Kuchai is an excavated site in Orissa which yielded faceted hoes, chisels, pounders, mace heads, and grinding stones. There was also a reddish brown pottery tempered with coarse grit, some with a slip and incised decoration. Neolithic material such as faceted and shouldered celts, bar chisels, rounded butt axes, wedges, and hammer stones occur as surface finds in Mayurbhanj district, but there is a lack of clarity about their dates and cultural contexts.

CELTS FROM NAYAPUR AND KUCHAI; SHOULDERED CELT FROM KUCHAI

The north-eastern states of Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, and Manipur have not yet been properly explored for prehistoric sites. Large numbers of polished stone

tools have been found in various parts of the Khasi, Garo, Naga, and Cachar hills, but their cultural context and dates are uncertain. We have to keep in mind the fact that polished celts are even found at historical levels at certain sites. Sarutaru, Daojali Hading, and Marakdola—all in Assam—have been excavated. These sites will be discussed in (< />)Chapter 5, as the neolithic levels here may be fairly late.

SOUTH INDIA

The dates of the southern neolithic sites mostly fall within the broad time bracket of c. 2900–1000 BCE, but they can be further divided on the basis of chronology and geographical region. The earliest dates so far range between c. 2900 and 2400 BCE and come from Utnur, Pallavoy, Kodekal, and Watgal. These and other early sites are discussed in this section, while the later ones will be discussed in (< />)Chapter 5. The widespread palaeolithic and mesolithic occupation in peninsular India was discussed in the previous chapter. At present, there is insufficient information on the dates of the mesolithic phase in the far south, and the connections between the mesolithic and neolithic phases have not been properly worked out.

The meagre evidence of neolithic sites along the south-east coast of India is strange, considering that this area has yielded evidence of palaeolithic and mesolithic artefacts. Apart from a neolithic site at Pondicherry on the Tamil Nadu coast, there seems to be an absence of sites in the deltas of the Pennar, Krishna, and Godavari rivers. This may be due to sites being swallowed up by the riverine silts or due to inadequate exploration. However, there are many sites in the middle and lower Krishna valley.

In the southern part of the Deccan plateau, where granite hills rise from the black cotton soil, the earliest neolithic villages were generally located on hillsides and plateaux, sometimes along minor streams, and occasionally along the banks of major rivers. A distinctive feature of many sites in this region is that they are marked by ash mounds. Research into the southern neolithic has in fact been dominated by a discussion of the ash mounds. The two key areas are the Raichur doab, between the Krishna and the Tungabhadra, and the Shorapur doab, between the Bhima and the Krishna. Ash mounds have been excavated at Utnur, Kupgal, Kodekal, and Pallavoy.

The ash mound sites are large accumulations of ash and vitrified material, created by the repeated burning of heaps of cow dung. They mark neolithic cattle pens which were surrounded by heavy enclosures made of tree trunks. Cattle breeders in parts of central and South India pen their animals in similar enclosures even today. Some of the neolithic pens were attached to permanent settlements, while others may have been temporary camps. The periodic burning of heaps of dung may have been connected with seasonal festivals marking the beginning or end of annual migrations to the forest grazing grounds. Modern pastoralists in peninsular India still burn bonfires on such occasions, and cattle are driven through fire, as it is believed that this will protect them from disease.

Excavations at Utnur (in Mahbubnagar district, AP) have shown that the wooden enclosure of the cattle pen here was rebuilt many times, and the dung within it was likewise burnt repeatedly. Cattle hoof-prints were found in the ash. The size of the enclosure indicated that it could have held about 540–800 cattle. Utnur gave evidence of a small amount of ground stone axes, stone blades, and a handmade coarse pottery. The latter included a burnished grey or buff ware (usually plain, sometimes with post-firing designs painted on in red ochre), and also a ware with a red, black, or brown dressing applied to it before burnishing and firing (sometimes with pre-firing black or purple

painted designs). The material culture of Utnur was similar to that of sites such as Piklihal (dated from c. 2100 BCE) and Kodekal.

FURTHER DISCUSSION

The mystery of the ash mounds

The first reports of the ash mounds appeared in the 1830s and 1840s. They were described as ‘cinder mounds’ or ‘cinder camps’, and many thought they were of volcanic or limestone origin. T. J. Newbold carried out the first excavation of an ash mound site during this period. In the course of his excavation at Kupgal, he found remains of pottery, animal bones, and a rubbing stone. This convinced him that the mounds were not natural geological formations but were created by people. In the late 19th century, the geologist-prehistorian Robert Bruce Foote became the first to connect the ash mounds with the neolithic culture. On the basis of his excavation at the site of Budikanama (also known as Kudatini) and a chemical analysis of the ash mound material, he argued that the ash mounds were heaps of excessively burnt cow dung, created by neolithic cattle herders.

Few were convinced by Foote’s argument. Robert Sewell argued that not all the ash mounds represented cattle camps and that some of them might belong to the medieval period. G. Yazdani suggested that the mounds may have been created by metal workers in gold or iron. There were many others who bought the argument that ancient iron-smelters were responsible for the creation of the ash mounds.

In the 1950s, Raymond Allchin and F. E. Zeuner made important contributions towards the understanding of the ash mounds. Zeuner submitted the ash of Kudatini to a chemical and microscopic study. This established beyond all doubt that the mounds were made out of dung, most likely cattle dung. Allchin under took an archaeological survey of the Raichur doab and excavated the habitation site of Piklihal and the ash mound site of Utnur. The Utnur excavation connected the ash mound at this site with a rectangular enclosure surrounded by post-holes, which Allchin interpreted as a cattle pen. Zeuner and Allchin’s investigations indicated that Foote had been right after all. It also became evident that the accumulations of cattle dung had been burnt not once but many times; this repeated burning seems to have been deliberate, not accidental.

A number of questions remained: Did the ash mounds represent in situ burning of dung that had accumulated naturally over time, or was the dung collected, deliberately heaped up, and then burnt? Why was it burnt at regular intervals? Was it in order to periodically clean up the cattle pens or did this activity have some sort of symbolic significance? Allchin suggests that the ash fires may represent annual seasonal rituals of purification.

Another problematic issue was the relationship between the ash mounds and the settlements. Allchin suggested that there were two kinds of ash mounds—those in or near permanent

settlements (such as Kupgal and Gadiganur) and others not associated with any settlements (including some of the largest ones, e.g., Kudatini and Utnur). On the other hand, on the basis of his excavations at Budihal, K. Paddayya suggested that the ash mound and habitation areas were not two separate, different types of sites, but were, in fact, related to each other. He also argued that the ash mounds were not an in situ accumulation of dung, but that dung and garbage cleared from penning and house areas was piled up here and then burnt.

Ash mounds do not occur at all southern neolithic sites. In the Pennar basin in Cuddapah district of Andhra Pradesh, there are neolithic sites but no ash mounds. The mounds are similarly absent from sites in the upper Tungabhadra valley and southern Karnataka. It has been suggested by P. C. Venkatasubbaiah that the absence of ash mounds in the Cuddapah district may be because of differences in subsistence systems. In this area, people practised animal breeding, but they also relied on millet and pulse farming. Due to the importance of agricultural activity, cow dung was used as manure and was therefore not burnt for ceremonial or other purposes. An alternative explanation is that even if agriculture was practised (and there is increasing evidence that it was) at many southern neolithic sites, manuring was not necessary. In such a situation, dung and dung ash could have been used for plastering houses, but they were not the valuable resources they represent for villagers today. The reasons for the presence or absence of ash mounds at southern neolithic sites would, in this case, have more to do with differences in cultural traditions rather than in subsistence practices.

The relative dates of the ash mound and non-ash mound sites are not yet fully clear. More investigations are required, and it is likely that not all the ash mound sites represent the same sort of settlement pattern.

SOURCE Korisettar et al., 2003

Recent excavations at Watgal and Budihal incorporated new archaeological approaches and techniques, and were marked by an especially careful collection and analysis of faunal and botanical remains. Watgal (Devaraja et al., 1995) is located in Raichur district of north Karnataka. The earliest calibrated radiocarbon date from this site gives a range starting from 2900–2600 BCE, and occupation continued into the 1st millennium BCE. Period I had a microlithic industry consisting mainly of blades and lunates made of chert and quartzite. There were also large flakes of basalt and dolerite.

The calibrated date range for Period IIA at Watgal is c. 2700–2300 BCE. This period was marked by increasing diversity in stone tools. There were underground storage pits. Two carbonized seeds of betel nut (Areca catechu) were found. This is the earliest evidence of the use of betel nuts in South Asia. Period IIA was dominated by microliths made of chert. Most of the pottery was handmade, while some may have been made on a slow wheel. It was ill-fired and consisted of coarse red and grey wares, as well as a burnished grey ware with post-firing painting in red ochre. There were other artefacts such as beads made of marine shell. The burials included one urn burial and two extended burials marked by stones, without grave goods.

MAP 3.7 SOME IMPORTANT NEOLITHIC SITES IN SOUTH INDIA

The calibrated range for Watgal Period IIB is c. 2300–2000 BCE. Here, as in the earlier sub-phase, there were numerous storage pits. The burials included both urn burials and extended burials marked by stones. But there was a new feature—pots appeared as grave goods. The range and number of artefacts were also greater. They included microliths and milling stones, beads of marine

shell, stone, and terracotta, and a shell pendant. A small iron fragment may have been an intrusion from later levels. Animal and human terracotta figurines (one clearly representing the torso of a female) were found. There was a continuity of earlier pottery types, with a slight increase in the amount of wheel-made pottery. Periods III and IV at Watgal are post-2000 BCE and show evidence of copper/bronze and iron.

Budihal (in Gulbarga district, Karnataka) has been excavated by K. Paddayya and others (Paddayya, 1993). One of the aims of the excavations was to understand the ash mounds in relation to their ecology and the material evidence around them. The site is located on a sandstone plateau covered with thin brown soil. A complex of four localities (I–IV) within a 400 × 300 m area was identified. Each locality consisted of an ash mound as well as habitational deposit. In the extreme west of the site, an extensive area (about 4.5 ha) was found littered with a huge number of chert tools and waste chert material, and nothing else. Huge sandstone boulders found nearby showed marks of small and big grinding grooves, places where people must have worked at grinding and polishing stone tools. This was clearly a chert blade-working area. It is possible that chert tools made at this site were sent to other neolithic settlements in the Shorapur doab and perhaps even further.

Excavations in Locality I (the main part of the site) at Budihal clearly showed that the ash deposits were located in the centre. Within the ash mound area, two distinct parts were identified—a cattle-penning area on the east and a cow dung disposal area on the west. There were several episodes of cattle penning, dung accumulation, and burning. A dozen structures were identified in the 1.34 ha habitational area around the ash deposit. One was a platform-like surface for chert working (chert was available 5–6 km north of the site) and another was a place for storing pottery. The rest were round dwelling units with low walls made of blocks of stone packed in mud. A total of 10 child burials (some in pits, others in pots) were found in the habitational area. The artefacts found from the ash mound and residential area included red and grey pottery, ground stone tools, chert blades, bone tools including axe heads, and beads of shell, bone, and semi-precious stones.

Seeds of three types of wild plants were identified through the flotation of soil samples—ber, Indian cherry, and amla (Emblic myrabolans). A few grains of domesticated horse gram were also found. Faunal remains of about 15 domesticated and wild animal species were identified. Bones of domesticated cattle were the most numerous. This shows that the neolithic people of Budihal specialized mainly in cattle rearing and to a lesser extent on sheep, goat, buffalo, and fowl. The bones of wild fauna included nilgai, blackbuck, antelope, monitor lizard, tortoises, birds, fish, crabs, and molluscs. An even more interesting discovery was that of a butchering area within the settlement area, on the southern side of the ash mound. Eleven radiocarbon dates ranging between c. 1900 and 1400 BCE are available for the ash mound and habitational area at Budihal. When calibrated, they give a range of 2180–1600 BCE.

NEW DIRECTIONS IN RESEARCH

Community feasting at neolithic Budihal

In one of the trenches excavated to the south of the ash mound, within the habitational area of Locality I at Budihal, the archaeological team discovered patches of floor made of kankar-like

material. Chemical analysis showed these to be made of fine ash, clay, small pieces of potsherds, bone, and charcoal, mixed with water and then rammed together in order to produce a hard surface. This floor seems originally to have covered an area of 200–250 sq m.

Strewn over this were huge numbers of animal bones—mostly those of cattle, but also of sheep, goat, buffalo, and wild animals. The large number of bones and stone tools of various kinds, including chopping tools and chert blades, indicated that this was a butchering area. Sandstone blocks found on the floor may have been used for chopping meat. Splinters of bone and bone artefacts show that some bone tools were made on the spot and were probably used for marrow extraction and hide working.

Three small pits (20–25 cm wide and 15–20 cm deep) were found in the northern part of the butchering area. These contained ashy soil, pieces of charcoal, and burnt bones. This was probably where people roasted meat. The large size of the butchering floor, its location between the ash mound and the settlement area, the fact that it was plastered to create a hard and permanent working area, the occurrence of such a large number of bones and tools, and the cooking area nearby—all this suggests that the area was used not by a single person but by the entire community or at least a substantial large part of it. Perhaps it was used on special or ceremonial occasions, when animals were killed and their meat shared among those present.

SOURCE Paddayya et al., 1995

The Budihal excavations demonstrated the presence of a habitation site directly associated with ash mounds, and Paddayya made some general observations on this basis. He emphasized that neolithic ash mounds and habitation sites were closely related to each other, and that the ash mound sites are best described as neolithic pastoral settlements with ash deposits. Ash mound sites tend to occur in hilly tracts, close to perennial sources of water, with good pasture land but soils too poor for agriculture. Garbage accumulated from the penning of cattle and other animals was dumped along with household refuse at spots close to the settlement and was periodically burnt. The reasons for the cow dung accumulation and burning were in part practical—to keep the settlement clean, to protect people and animals from health hazards posed by vermin-infected dung heaps, and to scare away wild animals. The burning could also have been part of rituals aimed at promoting the fertility of cattle. Some of the ash mounds are so large that the sites could have served as regional or local centres where people came from afar to attend periodic cattle fairs.

While the evidence from Budihal is important because it shows the complementary relationship between ash mounds and what seems to be a long-duration habitation site, it is not yet established beyond all doubt that a similar situation prevailed in other places. It is possible to visualize variations among sites—some may have been single, independent sites, others seem to consist of pairs or clusters (e.g., Kupgal, Budihal, Palavoy). Some may represent short-term camps of pastoralists, others more long-term habitation.

There are different views on the subsistence base of the southern neolithic sites. One view is that the neolithic people were fully sedentary farmers who made clearances in forests to carry out agriculture. Another view is that while these people may have practised some amount of agriculture,

they were basically nomadic pastoralists. A third view is that they were sedentary pastoralists who did not practise any agriculture whatsoever. Raymond and Bridget Allchin (1997: 104) argue that ash mound sites such as those at Utnur and Kudatini represent seasonal cattle camps. They also suggest that the evidence reflects a transition from cattle pastoralism (represented at the early ash mound sites) towards agriculture (in the later sites). However, the early date from Watgal, which does not have any ash mounds, shows that the ash mound sites were not necessarily the earliest.

The faunal remains, ash mounds, terracotta figurines of humped cattle, and rock bruisings of cattle on rocks around some of the settlements testify to the importance of cattle rearing in the southern neolithic. Cattle (Bos indicus) dominate the faunal assemblage, both in the ash mound and non-ash mound sites. Sheep and goat bones also occur, but in much smaller quantities. Horse (Equus) remains have been reported, but it is not clear whether a wild or domesticated species is represented. Bones of water buffalo and pig (probably both wild and domesticated) occur occasionally. Other faunal remains include the bones of wild and domesticated fowl.

Till recently, there was not much evidence of agriculture at South Indian neolithic sites. There were the occasional discoveries of charred grain and the indirect evidence of grinding stones, but cattle rearing seemed to dominate the picture. In fact, some scholars argued that the terrain, soil, and dry climate of the area made it unsuitable for agriculture. Recent research has changed this picture and has highlighted the range of plant remains found at southern neolithic sites (Korisettar et al., 2003). Millets seem to have been the staple crop, but grains of pulses and seeds of ber have also been found. Fragments of areca nut, probably wild, were found at Watgal.

So far, there is not much evidence of craft or trade activities at these sites. Although copper and bronze objects occur at several sites, there is no indication of the local smelting or working of copper. Did these objects come via exchange or trade from elsewhere? A pair of gold earrings was found at neolithic Tekkalakota and the Kolar fields of Karnataka are the likely source of the gold found in Harappan contexts. This would imply trade between the urban Harappans and the neolithic communities of South India. Marine shell and marine shell artefacts found at Watgal indicate exchange with coastal areas, probably the western coast.

We can note the beginning of the chalcolithic phase at sites such as Singanapalli and Ramapuram in the Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh. Both have been excavated, but there are no full excavation reports yet. The calibrated range of a date from Ramapuram is c. 2455–2041 BCE. This site gave evidence of house floors plastered with lime, wheel-made painted pottery (mostly black-on-red), microliths, and beads of semi-precious stones.

The Life of Early Farmers

As mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, hunting-gathering and food production do not represent two ends of a unilinear evolutionary scheme. In some areas, the advent of food production based on animal and plant domestication did not lead to a complete eclipse of the hunting-gathering way of life. Many communities continued to practise these activities, and continue to do so in some parts of the world, even in the 21st century. Further, archaeological data clearly indicates the practise of hunting and/or gathering at most early farming sites. It also suggests relationships of interaction and exchange between early farmers and hunter-gatherers.

The neolithic stage is generally associated with relatively self-sufficient village communities with equilibrium between food production and population. However, the issue is not only one of the quantity of available food. Food is an essential prerequisite for human survival, but it is also much more. The obtaining and consumption of food is generally a social activity; food items may be part of systems of hospitality, gift giving, trade, and social taboos. Food preferences and ways of preparation are important parts of social life, both within the family and in the larger social group. The site of Budihal gives a graphic image of community food preparation and feasting at a neolithic site.

Although certain inferences can be made about the social and political organization of early food-producing communities, it is necessary to recognize the fact that they were not identical to each other. Some sites reflect small communities with a relatively simple social organization, while larger sites represent more complex societies. The details of the subsistence patterns of the communities would have varied, depending on the resource potential of the environmental niche they lived in and on their methods of adapting to it. Differences in material equipment such as tools, pottery, and houses suggest differences in craft traditions and lifestyles. Burial practices and objects of possible cultic significance reflect divergent belief systems and customs.

There is a view that compared to the struggle for existence and lack of leisure time that marked the lives of prehistoric hunter-gatherers, the life of farmers was much easier. As indicated in the previous chapter, the first part of such a view can be questioned. Similarly, it would be an oversimplification to think of the life of early farmers as one marked by comfort and ease. Farmers were in fact a vulnerable lot. As is the case today, lack of rain could mean a bad harvest, pests or disease could wipe out an entire crop, and mould and rodents could destroy precious reserves of stored grain.

In spite of the differences in the ways of life of early farmers and the need to abandon stereotypical notions, it is possible to identify certain general features of the impact of the transition from hunting-gathering to food production. It was earlier pointed out that elements of sedentary living can be seen among certain hunting-gathering groups, while some farmers and pastoralists retain a migratory lifestyle. Further, there are different views on whether sedentary living preceded or followed the beginnings of agriculture. However, there is no doubt that in the long run, the transition to agriculture did lead to increasing levels of sedentariness among most communities.

Studies of nutrition and disease based on an analysis of human bones suggest that hunter-gatherers had a high-protein diet, one that was more varied, balanced, and healthy compared to that of early farmers, whose diet tended to be high in carbohydrates, with an emphasis on cereals or root crops. Sedentary people were also more vulnerable to infectious diseases and epidemics than nomadic groups. This may help explain the high incidence of disease reflected in the bones of certain early farming communities.

SEE (< />)C(< />)HAPTER 5, (< />)P(< />). 234 FOR DETAILS OF DECCAN CHALCOLITHIC SKELETAL REMAINS

FIGURE 3.7 HUNTING SCENE ENGRAVED ON STONE, BURZAHOM

Living for long periods of time in one place would have led to a more enduring relationship between people and their environmental niche. A sedentary life and the diet associated with agriculture would have meant less stress on women during pregnancy and more stable conditions for mother and child after childbirth. Further, high-carbohydrate diets are connected with decreased birth intervals. All these factors would have combined to produce higher birth rates. Sedentary living would have been easier on children and old people, and may have resulted in reduced death rates and increased life expectancy. Due to such reasons, the advent of food production would, in the long run, have led to an increase in population and changes in the age profiles within communities.

Food production required new tool kits and equipment. It also involved a new kind of scheduling of subsistence activities and shifts in the contributions of men and women, children, and aged folk. There would also have been a change in the food ethic—hunter-gatherers generally collect as much food as they can immediately consume on a short-term basis. Farmers would have had to produce and store quantities of food for future use. The focus would no longer have been on the acquisition of food to satisfy immediate needs on a daily basis, but rather on strategies that required much more long-term planning.

It has been argued that women may have been in the forefront of experiments related to plant domestication. This argument is largely based on ethnographic studies that connect women with horticulture activities. If, in hunting-gathering societies, men generally hunted and women did the food gathering, then it is indeed likely that the early experiments in agriculture were made by women. Further, since pottery was connected to food storage and cooking, tasks that are generally associated with women, they may have had a significant role to play in technical advances related to pottery making. Studies of modern potters have pointed out that making pots is a lengthy process that involves more than the hands of the potter who gives the pot its final shape. Women—and children— may have been involved in these other activities, including collecting and processing clay, collecting

fire wood, piling it in the kiln, and decorating the pots. While ethnographic evidence is never conclusive, in these instances, it is fairly persuasive, and there is good ground to assume the involvement of women in the important cultural advances made in the transition to food production.

Although the neolithic stage is generally associated with subsistence-level activities, there is evidence of specialized crafts and long-distance exchange at sites such as Mehrgarh. Kunjhun and Ganeshwar indicate fairly well-developed craft traditions and site specialization. Many sites give evidence of separate areas within the settlement being earmarked for different activities (cattle rearing, craft production, butchering, etc.). This reflects conscious, collective decisions made by members of the community for organizing space and activities. Evidence cited in earlier sections clearly indicates that some neolithic communities were interacting with proto-urban and urban cultures.

When larger groups of people started living together in settled villages, they would have had to devise new ways and norms of interaction and co-operation, ones that were different from those associated with bands of hunter-gatherers. The communities of early farmers and pastoralists must have been internally differentiated on the basis of age and sex. At some sites, differences in the sizes of houses and in the quantity and quality of grave goods suggest the existence of social ranks. Among larger groups, the regulation of economic activities and social relations would have required some sort of effective political control and organization.

Changes in Cultic and Belief Systems

Changes in subsistence practices would have involved shifts in symbolic and belief systems. One problem is: How are we to define religious or cultic activities, and how can their traces be identified in the archaeological record? In the previous chapter, we noted that some of the palaeolithic and mesolithic art remains may have been connected with magico-religious beliefs and hunting rituals. The cultivation of crops and the domestication of animals must have led to increased concerns with fertility and magico-religious ways of controlling it. Terracotta female figurines found from neolithic levels onwards at certain sites (e.g., in the north-western zone) have often been given the label of ‘Mother Goddesses’. It is very likely that farming communities connected women with fertility because of the fact that women give birth. It is also possible that they worshipped images of goddesses associated with fertility. However, the interpretation of female figurines is very subjective. Were these figurines goddesses, or were they toys, decorative items, or clay portraits of ordinary women? Similarly, were the humped bull figurines found at sites such as Rana Ghundai, Mehrgarh, Mundigak, Bala Kot, Gilund, Balathal, and Chi-rand cult objects? Unless their form or context suggest religious or cultic significance, it is necessary to be cautious while making inferences about the role and function of terracotta figurines.

FURTHER DISCUSSION

Female figurines—ordinary women or goddesses?

At one time, scholars tended to use the ‘Mother Goddess’ label for all female figurines found at sites. This was largely because of the belief that the worship of fertility goddesses was an

important part of agricultural societies all over the world, and also due to a tendency to look at ancient remains through the lens of later-day Hinduism, in which goddess worship had an important place. However, scholars are now increasingly aware of the stylistic and technical differences among assemblages of female figurines. Further, all goddesses need not have been part of a single goddess cult, and not all ancient goddesses were necessarily associated with maternity.

In the light of such problems, the term ‘Mother Goddess’ should be replaced by the longer but more neutral phrase—‘female figurines with likely cultic significance.’ This does not mean that none of these figurines might have had a religious or cultic significance. It is indeed possible that some were either images that were worshipped or votive offerings that were part of some domestic cult or ritual. However, not all female figurines necessarily had such a function. Whether we are looking at human or animal figurines, in all cases, their possible significance or function has to be assessed, and cannot be assumed. Apart from their form, the context in which they were found is crucial.

FEMALE FIGURINE, MEHRGARH

Purposeful, standardized burials do not appear for the first time in the neolithic or neolithic– chalcolithic phase, but they do increase in number. Such burials imply significance attached to the bodily remains of the deceased. In cases where burials occur within the habitation area, it is difficult to be certain whether the dead were respected or feared, or both. Patterns in the orientation and form of burials show the existence of funerary customs followed by at least some members of the community. Multiple burials may indicate simultaneous death or the strength of kinship ties. The practice of covering bodies with red ochre prior to burial at Mehrgarh suggests a fertility ritual. The

joint burials of humans and animals at Burzahom reflect a close relationship between people and the animals concerned. Simple versus more elaborate graves can be seen as reflections of differences in funerary customs associated with people of different ranks. Food items among the grave goods suggest a belief in afterlife. Secondary burials suggest multi-stage funerary practices and rituals. The social implications of changes in burial practices at certain sites need to be investigated further.

CONCLUSIONS

There is considerable variation in the chronology of the early food-producing societies and in the details of their adaptation to their environment. In c. 7000–3000 BCE, food-producing villages emerged in Baluchistan and the northern fringes of the Vindhyas. The number and geographical spread of such settlements increased in c. 3000–2000 BCE. The beginnings of animal and plant domestication did not lead to the extinction of hunting and gathering. One of the striking features of this period was the co-existence and interaction among neolithic, neolithic–chalcolithic, rural chalcolithic, urban chalcolithic, and hunter-gatherer communities. In the long run, the importance of the advent of food production lay not only in its immediate consequences, but also in the potential it created for future changes. In certain areas, the process of food production and its associated cultural developments eventually led to the emergence of proto-urban settlements, and then full-fledged cities.