Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c12.171

c12.171

It appears, therefore, that the Harappā civilization was based on some culture which had inherited the early Iranian tradition of the primitive flat copper or bronze axe, and that evolution of the form was arrested partly by the inherent conservatism of the Indian culture and partly by the lack of effective contact with Mesopotamia or immediately adjacent Elam, where the shaft-hole type appears to have had the longest life in Western Asia. Something similar can indeed be observed at Hissar in North Persia, where shaft-hole types first appear in Hissar III together with a large body of material indicating strong influence from Sumer, probably not earlier than Akkadian times (about 2300 B.C.). And, as we shall see in the next chapter, the appearance of these weapons in Hissar III is to be related to the same movements of people that brought the first shaft-hole tools to India.