Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c11.s1.40

c11.s1.40

As we shall see in Chapter VI, there was evidence of violent destruction at the end of the RG IIIc settlement; this and the similar tale told by the burning of the settlement on the Sohr-damb of Nal have some significance when we come to discuss the movements of peoples into India from the west in the second half of the second millennium. The total change in pottery types implies an extinction of the earlier culture at least at Rana Ghundai, and the barbarous quality of the pottery heavily decorated in relief which follows on the painted wares forms a striking contrast to the earlier traditions. It did not mean the end of human settlement in Baluchistan, but it must have meant a considerable reduction in the population, and yet the ancient craft of pot painter never entirely died out. From sites in the Quetta region have come pots painted with designs copied from Sassanian fabrics of the sixth and seventh centuries A.D. brought by traders through the Bolan Pass, and one has only to walk through the bazaars of Quetta or Peshawar to see set out for sale painted pots, gay with their black and red designs that so disconcertingly resemble the ancient patterns, but made the day before yesterday in the local kilns.