Early India and Pakistan to Ashoka c8.59

c8.59

Between the north and the centre, the main connecting link prior to the Iron Age appears to have lain in Gujarāt. Other lines of access doubtless contributed, and after the middle of the 1st millennium more central routes, such as that from the Jumna valley up the Chambal river and past Ujjain⁷⁴ took the lead. But as knowledge stands, it is in Gujarāt, and particularly in the Kāthiāwād peninsula, that a measure of continuity can be traced between the earlier civilization of the north-west and the central Indian complex. In this context the key site for the moment is Rangpur, near the head of the Gulf of Cambay. Archaeologically, Rangpur has had a chequered history. It was hailed in 1934 as the most southerly site of the Indus Civilization; in 1947 further exploration was thought to disprove its Indus association, but six years later renewed excavation replaced it on the Indus map.⁷⁵ Still insufficient investigation suggests that the earliest occupation was marked by crude microliths of jasper and agate, without pottery. This was succeeded by a settlement protected by a mud-brick wall over six feet thick and marked by a culture which may be described as a provincial variant of that the Indus Civilization. It included triangular terracotta 'cakes', faïence and steatite beads, a chert blade, and pottery with a peacock pattern, all allied to Indus types. Its thick red pottery, on the other hand, painted in black or chocolate with loops, dots, criss-cross, and horizontal and oblique lines, is less distinctively Harappān. It is to be expected that dilution or partial survival of this sort should occur near the periphery of the Civilization.