The Personality of India: Pre- and Proto-historic Foundation of India and Pakistan c14.1

c14.1

When we leave prehistory, our story becomes more precise, since a large number of ancient sites have been systematically explored and excavated. Besides, culturally, we pass into the age of metals and the consequent socio-economic changes. The chief among these is the appearance of a large number of town and village sites in the main river basins of the country, probably supporting large-scale agricultural communities. The most significant feature of these proto-historic cultures in different parts of the country is the variation in their aesthetic and technological traditions, but at the same time showing certain mutual influences and contacts. The second anomaly, if one were allowed to use the term, is the diversity in the cultural stage in different parts of the country. We have the highly developed urban civilizations comparable to those of Western Asia in time and stature, while on the other hand we have the survival of primitive stone age cultures right into the early historic period. This differential development can to a great extent be explained by the ecology and geography of these cultural regions. We have already described the various perennial nuclear regions, where large-scale agricultural communities could flourish and carry forward the torch of civilization, and the areas of relative isolation where progress was somewhat halting. Finally, we discussed and defined the areas of repulsion or isolation, the blind alleys of civilization in India. Hence in the following pages, the development of material culture in these three categories of zones will be discussed in the light of the results of archaeological excavations and explorations, and other relevant ethnological data.