The Personality of India: Pre- and Proto-historic Foundation of India and Pakistan c14.s1.t1: Pre-Harappan Cycle
The Personality of India: Pre- and Proto-historic Foundation of India and Pakistan c14.s1.t1
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Pre-Harappan Cycle
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Before we proceed further, it is better to remember a few general principles that guide our approach to the problem. Firstly, we have already emphasized, at great length, the environmental diversity between the main alluvial plain of the Indus and the hilly areas to the west, which separate it from the Iranian plateau. Fairservis has well-compared the Indus plains to a beach, and while the upland plateaus constitute the surf, the hills behind are the waves.¹ "The arid basins and hills of Baluchistan," writes Spate, "form the eastern portion of the great Iranian plateau, sharply marked off from the Indus plains by the Kirthar and Sulaiman ramparts...... Looped between the Toba Kakar and Sulaiman ranges lie the trellis-patterned basins of the Zhob and the Beji : nested folds of Cretaceous and Eocene limestones and sandstones producing in Loralai an extraordinary landscape of innumerable scraps and hogsbacks, small plateau and mesas, steep craggy outcrops with talus slops......and set in these arid hills, grey and dun and ochre, a few greener patches in small alluvial and detrital basins" (italics mine).²
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¹ FAIRSERVIS op. cit. p. 183.
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² SPATE op. cit. pp. 424-25.
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It is no wonder that these oases of plains among the hills supported the first peasant communities who brought to India some of the elements of the higher cultures from Iran. The valleys of Zhob, Beji, Pishin Lora, Dasht, Kel, Hingoli and Hub, in addition to the main stream of the Indus supported various cultures which can only be distinguished by their pottery industries, and a few other traits like burials etc. The careful comparative studies of Piggot, Gordon and Fairservis have shown that all these cultures have contacts between themselves, and where stratigraphic evidence is available even overlap with each other. As already explained, our evidence mainly consists of large surface collections, interrelated with the help of fabrics and designs of pottery. A tentative relative chronology is provided by a few trial excavations and the remarkable scraping of the sections as at Ranaghundai. A new light has been shed by the latest excavations, where the evidence of Radio-carbon dates has been made available to us. Hence the following account is a mere summary of the works already alluded to. Besides it is not possible, nor intelligible at this stage of our knowledge, to give a detailed catalogue of ceramic forms and patterns. But for convenience, the diagrammatic sketches of Stuart Piggot and a few distribution maps of Wheeler are reproduced here. (Figs. 24, 25.).
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The earliest culture identified is a Pre-pottery Neolithic culture with flint chips and Fairservis suggests a long Early Pre-historic period. The most interesting account of their economy comes from the animal remains. They already domesticated sheep, goat and an ox or bull.
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ZHOB ▲ & TOGAU ● WARES
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TOGAU
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ZHOB
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NAL ▲ & AMRI ● WARES
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NAL
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AMRI
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Fig. 24. Maps of Village-cultures of Baluchistan. (After Wheeler)
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KULLI WARE
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[Figure: QUETTA WARE Scale 50 0 50 100 150 Miles H = HARAPPA M = MOHENJO DARO ARABIAN SEA R. INDUS KARACHI]
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Fig. 25. Maps of Village-cultures of Baluchistan. (After Wheeler)
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" Surprisingly, there was no greater representation of wild fauna in Period J " (K.G.I.). They were familiar with the Indian bull, but its teeth found in the excavation were somewhat larger than the normal teeth of *Bos Indicus* and a suggestion has been made that the Brahma bull of the Indus valley is a cross-breed of *Bos Indicus* and the West Asian Urus. They were also familiar with some species of *Equus*.³ Thus it is very interesting to see the spread of the "incipient agricultural communities" and pastoral herdsmen in the 4th Millennium B.C. The tools included bone awls, blades varying in length between 3.⁴ to 5.8 cms., stone scrapers and a limestone slab with a triangular cross-section, probably used "as a grind stone". Finally, according to the excavator, "as these neolithic assemblages become better known, a sub-division of Period J (K.G.I.), or the addition of a Period K, or other changes can be expected".² Technologically this phase is comparable, according to Childe with the Pre-pottery and Early Neolithic cultures of Jericho, Jarmo, Hassuna etc.³ A piece of Charcoal, from one of the upper levels of this phase, gave a C-14 date of 5300 plus or minus 200 *i.e.* 3500-3100 B.C., thus pushing the beginnings of agriculture to the early 4th Millennium or even 5th Millennium B.C. Further excavation is needed to throw additional light on this very early culture of the Indo-Pakistan sub-continent.
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² FAIRSERVE, *ibid.* p. 335.
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³ CHILDE, *op. cit.*
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The second period has a wider distribution. At Kili Ghul Mohammed, the second phase (II) is characterized by hand made wares including basket marked pottery with a fine wheel-made pottery. All agree that these crude wares are akin to Rana Ghundai I wares (with very little decoration). At Rana Ghundai, Ross found the bones of the domesticated horse, *Equus Caballus* and Piggot suggests "a nomadic horse riding herdsman" as the new settlers.⁴
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⁴ PIGGOT, *op. cit.* p. 121.
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The third period, corresponding to K. G. III, is characterized by the Black-on-red slip and red-painted wares (type A wares of Ross R. G. II). In the Quetta valley, there are nearly 17 sites of this phase. At Ranaghundai, phase II is marked by the advent of new people who built houses with boulder footings. The most characteristic pottery is the so-called "Bull ware" which has also been found at Zhob and Surjangal. The other animal painted is the black-buck. It is noteworthy that the Loralai region is not the region of black-buck and the presence of humped ox, *Bos Indicus* also suggests an eastern rather than a western influence, indicating the possibility of settlements further east in the main basin.
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This phase shows close affinities to Hissar I. This contact with the regions further east is clearly definable in the next phase K. G. IV. "Rana Ghundai III 'a' and 'b', with their Amri affinities", says Fairservis, "are certainly akin to Kili Ghul Mohammed IV and Damb Sadaat I".¹ This period is very important, as it links a number of other sites in Baluchistan and Sind. This phase shows affinities to Kechibeg, Amri, Togau and Sur Jangal. A sample of charcoal from Damb Sadaat I gave C-14 range between 2400-1900 B.C. (4150 plus or minus 250).
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¹ FAIRSERVE, *op. cit.* 382.
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¹ FAIRSERVIS, *op. cit.* 354.
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In view of the extent of these cultures which begin to spread down into the plains, it is possible to visualise a series of cultures. Similarly the relation of the group of cultures of Nal and Nundara type with Amri links up the entire cycle of cultures, which preceded the Harappan in the Indus basin and the Indo-Iranian border lands.
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Coming further east, we find Amri providing a link with Harappan. While the former appears to underlie the latter at Amri, Lohri, Ghazi Shah and Pandiwahi, there is an evidence of an overlap or mixture at Pai-jo-kotiro in the Gaj Valley. But the more crucial culture, which shows more Harappan traits is that of Kulli *i.e.*, the presence of goddess figurines, bull figurines, and pipal leaf motif on pottery. In view of the curious combination of Harappan motifs, as well as the mixture of bulls, ibex, sigmas and comb patterns, Gordon thinks that "Kulli culture was of considerable duration and it had its contact with Harappa." According to Casal,² a culture with affinities to Kulli has been dated to 2650 plus or minus 300 B.C. In view of the great distance of Afghanistan from the sites we have been dealing with, one has to be cautious. But on the whole it again emphasizes that by the first half of the III Millennium B.C. the whole cycle of Pre-Harappan, peasant cultures were flourishing all over the Indus basin.
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² CASAL, *op. cit.*
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Piggot, Gordon and Fairservis have demonstrated the indebtedness of these cultures to their neighbours in Iran. The Quetta valley and the Pishin plain are traversed by major routes linking Baluchistan, Sistan, and Sind. It is, therefore, not unexpected that all these isolated river valleys, dissected by hills, should show contacts as well as divergences.
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Hence we can draw for ourselves a picture of these roving herdsmen and cultivators trying to exploit the little green valleys among these deserts of barren rock. In view of the present-day aridity and the precarious life which these areas support, Stein paid special attention to this environmental problem. He noticed large series of stone-built artificial dams and terraces known as *Gabarbands*. There is no knowing whether some of these belong to these early agricultural communities. "Yet," writes Piggot, "their presence is important in indicating greater rainfall in antiquity, and it is by no means improbable that they do, in fact, date back to the Pre-historic occupation of the Baluchi Hills".³ Dr. Hora has shown, on the basis of his study of fish drawings on Nal Pottery "that wetter conditions are likely to have prevailed in the Baluchistan hills during the period of Nal culture".¹
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³ PIGGOT, *op. cit.* p. 70.
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¹ HORA, S.—"Fish Paintings of the third Millennium B. C. from Nal (Baluchistan) and their Zoo-geographical significance" Memoirs of the Indian Museum, XIV, No. 2. pp. 73-84. Calcutta. 1256.
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The complex pattern of multiple origin, or localization or Indianization of certain foreign traits, is emphasized by Fairservis.
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"The assemblages we have described were primarily derived from Iran. It is true that some design elements on the pottery were derived from designs characteristic of the Indus valley, such as the Brahma bull and Pipal leaf, but in addition, the desert ibex and the desert antelope of the Iranian plateau, are also depicted. The Iranian orientation is therefore clear. The Iranian character of these Baluchi assemblages was probably further reinforced by continued and augmented contacts with Iranian cultures in Sistan and Southern Baluchistan. The wide distribution of characteristic wares, such as those of Amri and Quetta, indicates the extent of the contacts".²
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² FAIRSERVIS, op. cit. p. 360.
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It is these very contacts that have helped us understand the relations between the various cultures. Similarly, the detailed study of the blade industries suggests the infiltration of the mass technique of crested guiding ridges, which appears for the first time at Jericho in the Neolithic levels. Its further spread eastwards as well as westwards has been pointed out by the writer.³ Hence this technique which appears in the Harappan culture might have been brought into India by some of these communities. In this connection the long blades (5.8 cms.) of Kili Ghul Mohammed I are worth watching.
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³ SUBBARAO, B., "Chalcolithic Blade Industry......", op. cit.