The Personality of India: Pre- and Proto-historic Foundation of India and Pakistan c14.s1.t7.113

c14.s1.t7.113

In the semi-arid areas, we find, on the other hand, the survival of a primitive stone age economy, which definitely preceded the Harappan at Rangpur. In a gravel and sand lens exposed below the natural soil in the trench at Rangpur were found a few microliths. But this culture got isolated at the eastern and southern fringes of the desert of Rajaputana. These microlith using communities lived happily on the wind blown dunes on the banks of rivers or groups of dunes surrounding natural ponds. They were using hand made pottery (always found in very small fragments). The excavations at Vadnagar the ancient "Anartapura" have shown that the settlement started on one of these groups of dunes surrounding a pond about the beginning of the Christian era or slightly earlier. It grew into an extensive township in the early centuries of the Christian era, under the aegis of the Kshatrapas.¹