The Personality of India: Pre- and Proto-historic Foundation of India and Pakistan c15.s1.t2: Proto-history
The Personality of India: Pre- and Proto-historic Foundation of India and Pakistan c15.s1.t2
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Proto-history
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When we leave Prehistory and our survivors of a prehistoric age, we come to the "matrix of our civilization", the stage of the large scale agricultural communities with a knowledge of copper and bronze. Here again, we see the familiar pattern of a slow advance of civilization. Naturally, the Indus basin, as Spate calls it, is an extension of the environment of South West Asia. Similarly Braidwood calls it a periphery of the nuclear Near East. The rest of the country to the east of the Aravallis must have been in a Late Stone Age or Neolithic cultural level. Pre-Harappan and the Harappan cycles did not spread eastwards. Sometime at the end of this great urban civilization, two great landmarks appear in our cultural horizon. While the *Aryans came from the west and destroyed or displaced the great urban civilization of the Indus basin*, a widespread technological progress of the Gangetic basin is suddenly registered, either simultaneously or even a little earlier. We are completely ignorant about their origin. While Piggot, Heine Geldern and Gordon tried to derive this Gangetic valley from Western elements, Lal has made an attempt to support an independent origin. Yet the solution of the problem of their origins require an intensive attack on the Gangetic valley.
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This era is the most formative period characterized by the movements along the main communication system. This accentuated still further the environmental diversities and laid the foundations for the later Indian civilization. While the Harappans seem to have fled southwards and eastwards, the Grey Ware folk moved eastwards into the Gangetic basin. These movements set in more migrations. Thus this formative Post-Harappan era may be described as the " Era of movements " (Fig. 39).
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The most important cultural groups of the Post-Harappan cycle are:
1. Grey Ware
2. Chalcolithic cultures of Malwa and the Deccan
3. Ahar Painted Black-and-red ware culture
4. Harappan and its derivatives of Kathiawad
5. Copper-hoard culture (Gangetic Valley Copper Age)
6. Post-Harappan cultures of Sind and
7. Londo and other Border cultures.
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We do not have any stratigraphic evidence for the 6th and 7th groups, as they merely represent surface collections and grave pottery. Similarly the exact status of the 5th viz. Copper-hoard culture is somewhat vague and depends on the circumstantial evidence of pottery affinities of Hastinapur I with that of hoard sites.
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Thus we are left with four major elements of Proto-historic India, which vitally affected the patterns of her culture. The most significant feature is their distinct regional character (Fig. 39). As the Grey Ware culture and the Chalcolithic groups are stratigraphically Pre- N.B.P., their contemporaneity has to be taken for granted. Yet certain resemblances between the decorations on the Ahar painted black-and-red ware and the Grey Ware deserve further studies. The latest excavations at Navda Toli, conducted by the Deccan College and the Baroda University, threw further light on the nature of the Chalcolithic cultures of Central India and Deccan. The earliest level is characterized by the occurrence of black-and-red painted ware and cream or white slipped ware. While the former connects it with Ahar the latter connects with Somnath IB, and Rangpur IIB indirectly. Similarly the typical lustrous red ware occurs in Phase IV at Navda Toli, thus again confirming that all these cultures were in contact with each other.¹ The concave bowls and basins in an unslipped fine fabric of Phase II connect it with the Deccan. At the same time the Central Indian cultures show some vague affinities in design and forms with Iran, particularly Sialk. Hence none of these four main cultures can be derived from each other and all of them co-existed for a long time mutually influencing each other. Finally there are two remarkable links: Firstly the blade industry, employing the technique of crested guiding ridges appears, as far as we know, from the Harappan and survives right through to the end of the Chalcolithic cultures about 500 B.C., till it became extinct with the appearance of iron. Secondly, the copper celts found in the lowest levels of Navdatoli show two-fold influences like its pottery. They show the Harappan as well as the still enigmatic Gangetic valley types.
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¹ SANKALIA, SUBBARAO and DEO. Excavations at Maheshwar and Navda Toli. Baroda and Poona. 1958.
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Before we close this discussion, we have similar close affinities between the Chalcolithic cultures of Malwa, Maharashtra and Andhra-Karnatak. Here again the sure binding link is the blade industry, which has been traced as far south as Maski, Brahmagiri and Sanganakallu. But we see one remarkable fact. The foci of the Southern Neolithic cultures was the lower basin of Krishna (Andhra-Karnatak). While the Chalcolithic cultures started a south-east movement, we see a reciprocal movement from the South. At Nevasa, the typical chalcolithic elements of Malwa combine with it, polished celt (probably indicating dearth of copper and trade with the South) and the coarse grey ware vessels, the most prominent being the Brahmagiri urn type. Similarly at Bahal on the Girna, the lowest phase Ia again shows the grey fabrics, while the black-on-red wares appear in Ib, showing again the close inter-locking of these various cultures. Hence when this Chalcolithic element with its black-on-red wares, blades and metals, penetrated further south, they could not alter the economic character of the dominant neolithic industry. Thus this inter-action of these Neolithic and Chalcolithic elements are very interesting and need further attention. Whether this Chalcolithic culture managed to spread into Tamilnad, as also the true distribution of the Neolithic in that area need further study.
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[Figure: PROTO-HISTORIC ERA OF MOVEMENTS THE MAIN STREAMS OF CULTURES OF THE PROTO-HISTORIC PERIOD 0 40 80 120 160 200 MILES AREA ABOVE 500 METRES PRE-HARAPPAN SITES HARAPPAN & ALLIED SITES POST-HARAPPAN GREY WARE SITES PAINTED BLACK-AND-RED WARE SITES PENINSULAR CHALCOLITHIC SITES COPPER HOARD AND ASSOCIATED SITES
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Thus this Post-Harappan cycle and the movements of cultures led to the establishment of large scale agricultural communities in the valleys of the Ganges, Chambal, Narbada, Tapi, Girna, Godavary and Krishna and their tributaries. It set the pattern for the development of higher cultures in India. Thus when iron appeared in the middle of the first millennium B.C., the knowledge of a cheap and easily obtainable metal of a very durable character created the necessary background for the cultural homogeneity of the major river basins, which emerges in the next period.