The Personality of India: Pre- and Proto-historic Foundation of India and Pakistan c13.s4: D. Neolithic Period
The Personality of India: Pre- and Proto-historic Foundation of India and Pakistan c13.s4
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- c13.s4.t1 Kili Gul Mohmed — 38 parts
D. Neolithic Period
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We have already seen that there is a differential distribution between the Microliths and Polished axes (Fig. 20). But the nature of our existing collections (mostly surface and without [Figure: LATER STONE AGE CULTURES ● POLISHED STONE AXES ○ MICROLITHIC INDUSTRIES [pattern] DECCAN TRAP [pattern] AREA OF SHOULDERED CELTS Adopted from Wheeler's
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⁵⁸ In this feature they resemble the Australian-industries where the asymmetrical point is present. ZEUNER, 1952, *op. cit.*
Kili Gul Mohmed
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GEOLOGICAL MAP OF BELLARY AREA SHOWING THE RELATION OF PREHISTORIC SITES TO TRAP DYKES [pattern] ARCHAEAN SYSTEM [pattern] DHARWAR BANDS [pattern] TRAP DYKES ● PREHISTORIC SITES After F. R. Allchin]
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any records of their find-spots) vitiates any further study. But in Central Deccan, the districts of Bellary and Raichur have been studied in great detail following the excavations of Sir Mortimer Wheeler at Brahmagiri. It was followed by the survey by the writer, of the Bellary District culminating with the excavation at Sanganakallu, and Dr. F. R. Allchin's survey of the Raichur District was followed by his excavation at Piklihal. Shri B. K. Thapar conducted further excavations at Maski. Dr. Seshadri has made a study of the previous materials from Mysore State. As a result of all these studies, it is possible for us to reconstruct the sequence of cultures, following the sound principle of proceeding from the known to the unknown by stratigraphic method.
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The earliest phase at Sanganakallu, (3 miles north-east of Bellary) consisted of a crude microlithic industry of quartz associated with a few heavily patinated flakes of trap and sandstone showing a 'Levallois' technique. This industry points either way towards to the earlier 'Middle Stone Age' already described and also to the succeeding Microlithic or 'Late Stone Age'.¹ As Seshadri and Krishnaswamy have put it, "this post-palaeolithic flake industry would be no more than a 'macro-facies' of the microlithic blades".² This phase at Sanganakallu was followed by a gap in the habitation, indicated by a weathered sterile deposit.
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¹ SUBBARAO, *Stone Age Cultures of Bellary*, Deccan College Dissertation Series, No. 7, Poona, 1958.
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² KRISHNASWAMI, 1953, *op. cit.*
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Succeeding this gap, the Phase 'IIa' at Sanganakallu is characterized by fresh celts and other polished tools with a pale-grey handmade pottery, but without any trace of the Painted pottery. The next Phase IIb is characterized by the appearance of typical Brahmagiri Ia and Ib type pottery and thus links up with the Chalcolithic elements of the upper valleys of Godavary and the Malwa plateau as we shall see in our Proto-historic period (Fig. 21). This stratigraphic position revealed in 1948 was confirmed by recent work in Central India and Maharashtra. B. B. Lal says, "The painted red ware occurred only in Sanganakallu II, 2 (IIb) and not below, while the burnished grey ware started from II, 1 (IIa). It appears, therefore, that the painted pottery reached the scene at a later stage, through an extraneous influence".³ But the copper and bronze was introduced in such small quantities as to have been ineffective in changing their economy, which is purely Neolithic. It is not difficult to understand this situation, if we can recall the type of culture contact—viz., "fusion with the dominance of the resident traits". Besides the scarcity of copper would also accentuate the need to retain the heavy stone axes.
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³ LAL, B. B. *Ancient India*, No. 9.
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If we accept this position, the sequence in the Central Deccan becomes extremely interesting. Thanks primarily to Foote, who was associated with the geological survey of a large portion of South India and the careful investigations of Leonard Munn in the Raichur doab, we are
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SANGANAKALLU 1948 TRENCH II TRENCH I
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| TRENCH II | | | TRENCH I |
| | (1) | PHASE III | (1) |
| | (1a) | *Megalithic* BLACK-AND-RED MEGALITHIC WARE | (1a) |
| | (2) | | (2) |
| SURFACE | (3) | | (3) |
| | (4) | PHASE II SUB-PERIOD 2 | (3) |
| | (5) | *Chalcolithic* WHEEL MADE BLACK-ON RED PAINTED WARE, STEATITE DISC BEADS BLADE TECHNIQUE, BURNISHED HAND MADE WARES INCLUDING RIMLESS BOWLS | (4) |
| | (6) | | (5) |
| | (7) | | (6) |
| | (8) | PHASE II SUB-PERIOD 1 | (6) |
| | (9) | *Late Neolithic* HAND MADE WARE PAINTED WITH RED OCHRE, COARSE AND BURNISHED GREY WARE FRESH CELTS AND FLAKES OF BASALT. OTHER NEOLITHIC TOOLS | (7) |
| | (10) | | (8) |
| | (11) | | (9) |
| | (12) | GAP | |
| | (13) | PHASE I *Early Stone Age* (14) | |
| | | | *Early Neolithic?* THIS GAP BETWEEN PHASES I & II MAY BE FILLED UP BY ONE CHARACTERIZED BY A LARGE NUMBER OF LIGHTLY PATINATED CHIPPED AND GROUND TOOLS FROM 14 SITES. |
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1
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2
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V. (1) A view of the terraced plain on the top of the 'Face Hill' of Bellary town, with Neolithic settlement on top.
(2) A view of the plain on the top of the Sanganakallu hill with the trace of one of the trenches excavated in 1948.
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1
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2
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3
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4
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5
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VI. Graffiti from the Neolithic sites of Bellary and Raichur Districts-1 to 3 from the top of the Kupgal hill (Bellary); 4 and 5 from the famous site of Billamrayana Gudda (Raichur).
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in a position to understand the physiographic environment and the influence of raw material on these widespread agricultural and pastoral communities of Southern and Central Deccan. They always lived on, or near the granatoid hills with convenient rock shelters overlooking their fields below. A fine negative evidence is provided by their avoidance of the schistose hills of the Dharwar system, which leave masses of sub-angular talus along the slopes making any cultivation very difficult. Besides, they always made their large variety of tools out of fine grained basalt or diorite found in large dykes, which intrude out of the gneissic series. Hence, we find a very interesting relation between granite and gneissic hills, dykes and these sites. This was worked out in detail for Bellary, Kurnool and Raichur districts (Fig. 20-inset). According to Sir Edwin Pascoe, all the dykes in Chingleput, South Arcot, Salem, Coimbatore, the Nilgiris, Bellary, Anantapur and the Raichur doab are the representatives of the great lava beds of the Cheyiar series of the Cuddapah system.¹ Foote earlier commented about the invariable use of this dyke basalt for the polished stone celts of South India (Fig. 22). At a number of sites in Bellary and Kurnool districts, large quantities of patinated tools including axes, chisels, picks, hammerstones etc. were found together with fresh specimens. Though patination in itself does not carry any chronological significance, the stratigraphic evidence of tools with different physical condition from Sanganakallu and the occurrences of fresh and patinated specimens from the surface at fourteen sites in the Bellary and Anantapur districts seem to lend weight to the suggestion that the Neolithic culture lasted for a considerable time, preceding the introduction of metals into the Central Deccan at the beginning of the 1st Millennium B. C.
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¹ PASCOE, SIR EDWIN, Manual of Geology of India, Vol. I. Calcutta, 1950, p. 469-482.
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If we take into consideration the graffiti found near these settlements in Bellary and Raichur districts, we will be justified in inferring that these Neolithic Settlers domesticated the long-horned cattle, as suggested by Dr. Allchin.² At all their sites, large number of graffiti were found depicting cattle, other animals, huntings scenes and human groups. The first discovery of such drawings was made at Kupgal, Bellary District in 1892. At Piklihal, Allchin recovered terracotta figures of long-horned cattle from his excavations. Prof. F. E. Zeuner has identified the cinder from the mounds from Kupgal and Kuditini,³ as accumulated heaps of dung, suggesting again pastoral communities. Since similar slag was found in the excavations at Sanganakallu and Brahmagiri, the age of some at least of these mounds seems to be settled. This confirms the earlier theory, enunciated by Foote, on the origin of the mounds and their African parallels "Zariba", cited by him.⁴ Now it becomes clear that the typical celt with a pointed butt is characteristic of the Indian Neolithic.
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² I am very much obliged to Dr. Allchin for permitting me to refer to his discovery.
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³ I am very grateful to Prof. Zeuner for this information.
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⁴ FOOTE, Ippa.
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Fig. 22. Typical Neolithic tools from Sanganakallu Bellary District.
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Outside the Central Deccan, the best evidence throwing great light on the antiquity of the Neolithic culture comes from Kili Ghul Mohammed. According to Fairservis (Jr.) who conducted the excavation, the lowest level belonging to Period I, belongs to the familiar Pre-pottery Neolithic cultures and a top level of this period is dated by C-14 to 3500-3100 B.C. In view of the very limited area of the dig, we cannot but agree with the excavator who says: "as these neolithic assemblages become better known, a sub-division of Period I, the addition of a Period K, or other changes can be expected".¹
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¹ FAIRSERVIS (Jr.), op. cit. p. 335.
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Outside these areas of the Central Deccan, we have some satisfactory evidence from Burzhom in Kashmir and Kili Ghul Mohammed in the Baluchistan area. At Burzhom the section was as follows²:
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² DE TERRA & PATERSON, op. cit.
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III. Pottery of the 4th Century A.D. II. Black polished pottery with incised designs resembling Jhanghar, Post-Harappan culture of Sind. I. Neolithic celts, bone awls, pottery and cooking vessels, in a post-glacial loess. Unfortunately the excavators had no idea of the ceramic types they were talking of, and this is not helped by Piggot's view, accepted by Gordon and identifying their Black polished ware as N.B.P.³ The only solution seems to be a fresh excavation in the light of our recent knowledge.
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³ GORDON, D. H., op. cit.
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In the rest of India, our position is still vague. A large collection from the Kaimur ranges and the Gneissic Bundelkhand and Baghelkhand lies in the British Museum. It is rather tragic that we have no trace even of the find-spots of the major part of the collection. With the peculiar complexity of Indian archaeology with its problem of survivals at different levels, this collection is worse than useless for any scientific purposes. Probably we have had enough of typology. This calls forth a new effort in the area, specially on account of their close affinities to the south-Indian Neolithic cultures. This suggests that there was a widespread Neolithic Culture covering a large portion of the sub-continent in an environment favourable for early agricultural communities.
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But it should be noted that we have no evidence at present to decide the origin of this culture. Dr. Eugene C. Worman,⁴ on account of the comparative absence of celts in Western and North Western India, suggested a South-East Asian origin for the whole Neolithic complex of India.
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⁴ WORMAN, EUGENE, C., "The Neolithic Problem in the Pre-history of India", Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences 31, 1949.
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A more systematic analysis of all available material from South-East Asia by Ahmed Hasan Dani, has shown that the typical pointed butt axe with lenticular or oval section is the characteristic Indian form. It does not occur in the continental S. E. Asia, where the characteristic type is a flat adze or facetted hoe with squared sides. This type seems to have infiltrated later into Eastern India.¹
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¹ I am very much obliged to Dr. A H. Dani for permission to refer to his thesis submitted to the London University.
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Thus we see two distinct traditions in the Indian Neolithic and its later survivals. Into the widespread and chronologically earlier group, we see a distinctive infiltration of the South-East Asian. Dr. Dani has analysed the various elements that have penetrated into Eastern India including Assam from China and Malaya zones. But in the areas of isolation in Central and Southern India, some tribes have more or less managed to survive in a Neolithic economy.