Early India and Pakistan to Ashoka c6.6

c6.6

Behind the latter half of the 3rd millennium there is at present no absolute moment or epoch upon which Indian archaeology can depend. Comparisons have been suggested between certain of the ceramic industries of the Indian borderland and those of Iran and Iraq, but without any pretence of certainty in a chronological sense. Differences are as plentiful as resemblances, and the duration of a local or even a regional industry is in any case incomputable without more collateral evidence than is at present forthcoming. For example, a distinctive ware to which the name of 'Quetta' has been given may, on typological analysis, be regarded as early but on stratigraphical analysis—such little as is available—may equally well be relatively late. For the time being, typology is indeed a fickle guide to the time-sequence of the border cultures of the 4th and 3rd millennia.