The Personality of India: Pre- and Proto-historic Foundation of India and Pakistan c12.s3.24

c12.s3.24

A more urgent need for a revision seems to be the correlation of the North Indian and South Indian archaeological chronology. Now, the Vindhyan barrier has been successfully broken by the recent work at Maheshwar. With our knowledge of the age and distribution of the N. B. P. belonging to the early centuries preceding the Christian era, we can clearly see its movements in space and time towards west, east and south from its focus in the Gangetic valley. Similarly, in the early centuries of the Christian era, we have another pottery, the Red Polished ware and its movements towards east, north and south can be followed in space and time, from its focus in western India. With the help of this pottery again, we can link up with Brahmagiri and Chandravalli in the Andhra Period. Hence, a slight downward revision of the Brahmagiri chronology seems to be essential to reconcile the evidence from the north and south. This would enable us to place the Megaliths in the Pre-Mauryan period, without upsetting the Roman datum. Even for the "Andhra pottery", the 1st century A.D. should be a central date instead of a terminal date. These changes would enable us to place the infiltration of metals into the Central Deccan to a period about the beginning of the 1st Millennium B.C. The more obvious and urgent desideratum is to conduct one or two large scale excavations in the Central Deccan to verify and corroborate the sequence of Sanganakallu, Brahmagiri, Maski and Piklihal.