Early India and Pakistan to Ashoka c8.41

c8.41

There was no overlap with Period II, which contained the Painted Grey Ware described on p. 26, together with remains of mud or mud-brick walls, but with no clear evidence of the use of baked bricks. Copper was found in the form of an arrowhead, a nail-parer, an antimony rod and a few fragments; there were no stone implements and no iron objects, though in the uppermost levels lumps of iron ore were encountered. Two glass bangles from these strata seem to be the earliest yet recorded from India. The humped bull was represented both by terracotta figurines and by actual bones, which occurred in large numbers with those of buffalo, horse, sheep and pig. Whilst these represent considerable domestic herds and flocks, the bones of deer indicate that hunting supplemented farming; but more notable was the discovery of charred grains of rice which, with other rice recently recovered from Chalcolithic Nārdā Toli (p. 142), carry back rice-cultivation in the subcontinent many centuries behind the earliest date previously recorded (the 3rd century B.C.). Altogether, the remains of this period, dated roughly to 800-500 B.C., show a developed township with an economy based on mixed farming, and with adequately constructed houses of which at present little is known.