The Personality of India: Pre- and Proto-historic Foundation of India and Pakistan c14.s1.t1.4

c14.s1.t1.4

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.).