History of Orissa from the Earliest Times to the British Period v1.c10: Chapter III. Pre-Historic Antiquities

History of Orissa from the Earliest Times to the British Period v1.c10

Language: English

Chapter III. Pre-Historic Antiquities

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Like all provinces of India where the hills approach or extend as far as the sea, Orissa, with its three great divisions, can boast of the oldest relics of human habitation. In the hilly tracts to the west of the flat coast-land of Orissa the oldest stone implements have been discovered. So many as four were described by Coggin Brown, of which two can still be seen in the Indian Museum at Calcutta. V. Ball discovered all of them and described their find-spots more than half a century ago. These four specimens were found in the Garhjat states of Dhenkenal, Angul and Talcher and one in the British district of Sambalpur. The following notes are reproduced from Ball’s articles on stone implements from Orissa :—

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*Dhenkenal*: The specimen from this locality is very rudely formed and has the point broken off by recent fracture. It was found together with the debris from a laterite conglomerate; and from the fragment of ferruginous matrix still attached to its surface there can, I think, be little doubt that it was at one time imbedded in the laterite. The material is an opaque, slightly granular quartzite. *Angul*: This specimen was found in the bed of a stream near the village of Kaliakota. Its shape is broad oval, unusual. The material is a vitreous quartzite. *Talcher*: This specimen was found on the surface near Huri Chandpur. It is the best formed of the series. The material is a vitreous quartzite not improbably derived from a vein,

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*Sambalpur*: This specimen was found near Bursapali to the north of the well-known village of Kudderbuga. It has a pointed wedge shape. The material is a vitreous quartzite.¹

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¹ *Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 1876, pp. 122-3.*

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In a paper read before the Irish Academy Ball pointed out the striking similarity which exists between the Bengal and Orissa forms and those from the Madras Presidency, and concluded by showing that there is a resemblance, both in the form of the palæolithic implements from Bengal and Madras, and their material. His legitimate conclusion was that there is a definite connection between the peoples who manufactured these implements in Orissa and Madras. In the case of the Orissa specimens, they were picked up at places far away from their nearest possible sources of origin. Two of the Orissa specimens are in the Indian Museum at Calcutta:—

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"53. Boucher, elongated oval, pebble butt broken point; light tinted quartzite. Dhenkenal. Orissa. V. B.

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54. Palæolith, flat, discoid, worked edge; brown-tinted quartzite. Angul. Orissa. V.B."²

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² *Catalogue of Pre-Historic Antiquities in the Indian Museum, Simla, 1917, p. 68.*

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J. Coggin Brown has made it sufficiently clear that with our present state of knowledge it is clearly impossible to divide the Pleistocene period into shorter stages. The division of European Palæoliths into clearly divided chronological periods is not yet possible in India, though some Indian scholars have attempted it.³ Until excavations are carried out in rock shelters or river beds, it will not be possible to identify the industrial remains left by the races which inhabited India in the earlier days of human history with similar types discovered in other countries of the world. It cannot be decided at present whether the strata in Indian Pre-historic culture correspond to the stages already recognised in Europe. "Indian Palæoliths are massive rock fragments in the vast majority of cases composed of quartzite, chipped into cliving, smiting and perhaps digging implements, exactly resembling the early stone age implements, found in Northern and Southern America, Central Africa, and in Europe." ¹ Bruce Foote was of opinion that Indian Palæoliths could be divided into ten distinct classes but Brown prefers to recognise three broad classes only: "*Bouchers*, which correspond to the English 'celt' and the French 'coup de poing' or 'hache a talon'; *palæoliths*, in which I include the axe and cleaver-like forms including the 'Madras' and 'Guillotine' types; and *discoid forms*."

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³ P. Mitra—*Pre-Historic India*, 2nd. Ed., Calcutta 1927, pp. 146-262.

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¹ *Catalogue of Pre-Historic Antiquities in the Indian Museum, p. 1.*

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Paleolithic Implements found in Orissa

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"In appearance these types approach nearest to those from the *Chellean* and *Acheulean* periods of Europe."

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The Palæoliths of India have been discovered in high level gravels or older alluvium of rivers and in certain cases of lakes as well as in the higher level lateritic formation of the Coromandel Coasts. The Palæoliths discovered in Orissa are so few that no definite statement can be based on them regarding the palæolithic culture of the province. It is clear from the material, a vitreous quartzite, that they belong to the great Deccan series and the people who used them were probably a part of the race who inhabited the Deccan plateau. Brown thinks that "the formation of the gravels in which these implements were discovered may have commenced some 400,000 years ago."¹ No human remains associated with palæolithic stone implements or potteries or paintings have been discovered in India. They are certainly unknown in Orissa and therefore it would be clearly unscientific to connect Orissan Palæoliths with any of the rockpaintings discovered in the neighourhood of that province, *e.g.*, those from Singanpur.

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¹ *Ibid.*, p. 2.

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According to geologists, there is a great interval between the Palæolithic period and the Neolithic in India. Foote saw that Palæoliths were found in the bed of the Sabarmati in Gujarat in a bed of coarse shingle and the Neoliths are found about 250 feet above that level on high level loess. While Palæoliths are found for the most part on the Deccan plateau, Neoliths are discovered over a much wider range. In the Neolithic period the types of stone implements are very large in number. No information has yet forth-come about Palæoliths discovered in the country between the Chilka lake and the mouth of the Kṛṣṇā, save a single Palæolith now in the Madras Museum, which was found near Ostapalle in the Kṛṣṇā district.²

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² No. 2617—*Indian Pre-Historic and Proto-Historic Antiquities, Catalogue Raisonne, Madras, 1914, p. 172.*

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Practically no information exists about Neoliths discovered of any part of Orissa save and except the recent find of "shouldered" axes found in the hill district of the Mayurbhañja State. The Indian Museum, Calcutta and Central Museum, Madras, contain the best collection of Pre-historic Antiquities of this country, but none of them contain a single Neolith which can be definitely regarded as belonging to any part of Northern, Central, or Southern Orissa, including the districts of Vizagapatam, Godāvarī and Kṛṣṇa.

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The recent discoveries in the Mayurbhañja State are of very great interest, as the implements discovered are "shouldered." Neoliths are generally divided into two classes: (1) unpolished and (2) polished. "Shouldered" axes or adzes belong to the latter class, but they represent a special sub-division of polished Neoliths. The shouldered implements were first described by Prof. Hem Chandra Das Gupta, M.A., F.G.S., of the Presidency College, Calcutta, who remarked: "The occurrance of these two implements of the Burmese type, in areas through which the wave of Khasia immigration very likely passed, before the race found its present hilly home, is of extreme interest and is quite in conformity with the view so long held regarding a relationship between the Khasia of Assam and some of the older tribes of Burma, which has been based chiefly on linguistic grounds."¹ This observation of Prof. Hem Chandra Das Gupta is quite in accordance with the classification of Austric languages by Peder W. Schimdt, according to whom there are two groups of Kolian languages in India in the first of which should be included Sāntāli, Muṇḍā, etc., but in the second group are to be placed Khāsia and Nicobarese and certain languages of Burma and Further India. Indian Neoliths are thus capable of being associated with certain language complexes; the earlier or the Kolian group with polished and non-polished but unshouldered axes and adzes, and the second or the Khasia-Nicobarese group with the shouldered axes and adzes. This association further proves that the Austric immigrants came in two main waves, the first of which spread as far north as Kashmir, the Himalayan Valleys and the water-sheds of the Indus, Ganges and Brahmaputra as far south as the southern-most extremity of the Indian Peninsula, but not to the south of Kāverī.¹ The second wave was mainly confined to North-eastern India, Burma and the Malay Peninsula. Coggin Brown says :—

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¹ Journal and Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Vol. IX, 1915, pp. 291-3.

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¹ *Catalogue of Pre-Historic Antiquities in the Indian Museum, p. 3.*

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"It seems difficult to imagine what differring condition could have obtained during the savage infancy of our race in Burma, greater than that which existed between India and Europe ; yet directly we cross from India, properly so called, to the country lying to the eastward of the Bay of Bengal, we find stone implements not less abundant than elsewhere ; but of an entirely different type. We no longer find the familiar Indo-European type, either Palæolithic or Neolithic, but one seemingly autochthonous to the Malayan countries, and both in size, shape, and design displaying considerable divergence from any of the ordinary types of weapons found elsewhere.

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"The main points of divergence are :—1st, the frequency of forms possessing ‘shoulders,’ a peculiarity quite confined to articles from the Burmese or Malayan area; 2nd, the cutting edge being usually formed by grinding down on one side, as chisel and not an axe; 3rd, the general small size and seeming inefficiency for any rough purpose, though it must be remarked that very small and well-fashioned weapons are also found in India.”²

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² *Ibid., p. 134.*

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The earliest shouldered weapons was discovered by V. Ball in Dhalbhum in 1875.¹ The discovery of shouldered axes and adzes in Mayurbhañja proves that the hilly tracts of Northern Orissa were included within the zone of influence and area of migration of the second group of Austric races.

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¹ Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1875, pp. 118-22

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Neolithic Implements found in Orissa

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In other departments of Neolithic culture, Orissa is very poor and though all the Garhjat States are rich in Neolithic remains, no attention has been paid to this subject by the chiefs of the State except that of Mayurbhañja. The important subject of Neolithic Ceramics has been generally neglected by Archæologists in India, and pointed attention was drawn to the subject after my discovery of painted pottery along with Cherts and Cores and Pictogrammatic seals at Mohen-jo-daro in the Larkana district of Sindh in December, 1922. Previous to that date the only careful observer of Neolithic culture in India was the late R. Bruce Foote, whose notes on this subject in his catalogue of the Madras Museum are replete with information. But the absence of interest in the Neolithic period of a very backward province like Orissa has prevented its wealth of resources from being systematically explored. On the important subject of Neolithic Culture in Orissa there is nothing very particular to say at the present moment. There is not a single Neolith in the Madras Central Museum from the northern districts of Ganjam, Vizagapatam and Godāvari. In the important collection of Neoliths in the Indian Museum, Calcutta, there is not a single specimen which J. Coggin Brown could refer to any of the districts of the Eastern coast of the Bay of Bengal, from Balasore or Medinipur to the Kṛiṣhṇa-Godāvari Doab. The occurrence of Megalithic tombs or burial urns in Ancient Orissa is still problematical and no information exists with regard to them. So also in the case of the Sub-Neolithic phase or Chalcolithic Culture Orissa is still a closed book to us. The very great interest recently aroused among Archæologists all over the world by my discovery of one of the oldest Chalcolithic Cultures at Mohen-jo-daro almost loses its significance when we come to Orissa. Yet the neighbouring country abounds in specimens of the Copper age. The country to the south of the Narmadā is generally regarded as having passed from the sub-Neolithic phase to the Halstatt Age but in Orissa we find a regular age of copper intervening between the Neolithic and Iron ages.

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There are at least three different sites in the Mayurbhañja State where Neoliths have been discovered in recent times. Two of these lie to the west of the Bāngidiposi hills and are therefore connected with Ranchi-Hazaribagh-Singbhum series. The only record of Neoliths in this particular area appeared in the newspaper some time ago when it was stated that on account of the erosion of the banks of the river Vaitaraṇī near Khiching a number of neoliths have been discovered ; but no trained Archæologist has visited this area nor have these implements been examined or described by any competent authority. On the road from Baripada to Bisai (32 miles) the Bāngidiposi is crossed after the 32nd mile. This road goes straight to Rairangpur on the Tatanagar-Badampahar branch of the B. N. Railway. Another road from Bisai branches to the south-west and reaches Karanja 75 miles from Baripada. Mr. Paramananda Acharya, B. Sc., Senior State Archæological scholar of the Mayurbhañja State pointed out some excavactions for road repairs on the section between Manada and Jasipur where neoliths were discovered about two to three feet below the surface. According to Mr. Acharya these neoliths consist of rough cherts or scrapers and celts or bouchers of the same type as those discovered subsequently at Baidyapur. Nobody well-versed in prehistoric archæology has yet seen or described the prehistoric discovered on the Manada-Jasipur road or those revealed by the erosion on the bank the Vaitaraṇī.

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The village of Baidyapur lies on the eastern slope of some high ground to the south of the river Bura Balang. It lies fourteen miles by road from Baripada but only ten miles as the crow flies, as the eastern edge of the Simlipal range intervenes between it and the town. The village of Baidyapur is very small and consists of a single straight street which ends in an open space. Towards the east of the road, in the open space, there is a tank about 500 yards at the end of the village. There is also a mud pool on the northern side of the eastern end of the village street in which also some neoliths were found. The tank to the east of the village road is about 200 feet square and was recently re-excavated. The first discovery of neoliths in Orissa was made here at that time. Mr. Paramananda Acharya, who is an inhabitant of this place, informs me that neoliths are being discovered in this village from time immemorial and whenever the villagers excavate earth or dig deep in the corn-fields around they discover neoliths. The village stands on the sloping ground between the mound on the west and the tank to the east. The top of the mound is formed of conglomerate or *kankar* which is still in the process of growth. But the slope has accumulated either alluvium or vegetable mould during the passage of years and cultivation is possible where this mould is of sufficient thickness. On the south of the village as well in the east there are corn-fields, where, according to Mr. Acharya and his co-villagers,—stone implements are always found at a depth of two to three feet. The actual stratification could be studied with great advantage on the southern bank of the tank. Here below the bund formed during re-excavation we found the bottom of the vegetable mould which is about two to three feet in thickness. Below this comes the disturbed conglomerate of the same type as that to be found on the top of the high mound to the west of the village. It is disturbed and mixed with small boulders, most probably from river beds, the action of the current having rounded off the sharp edges. At this place, the villagers excavate for fresh earth and come upon all sorts of stone implements and pot-sherds. A few minutes excavation brought to light a distinct palæolithic boucher of the Acheulian type with two distinct ridges and edges formed by chipping. At the same time and within twelve inches from the find spot of the boucher, we came across a thin fragment of black Flint which being provided with a cutting edge and the other side being blunt and thick must be a palæolithic scraper if not an Eolith. The villagers brought to me many of these implements, one of which, a distinctly palæolithic bar-celt, was in the possession of an uncle of Mr. Paramananda Acharya and was found only two or three days ago. It is 6.9-16 inch in height 2³/₄ inch broad at the base and only 1¹/₂ inch at the top. The collection originally brought from Baidyapur to the Indian Museum by Mr. Paramananda Acharya for the examination of Rai Bahadur Rama Prasad Chanda, B.A., F.A.S.B., has not been either classified or described as yet. Among them I found two distinct palæoliths, one of which is of the bar-celt type the cutting edge of which has very nearly disappeared. It is not a carefully made implement though it measures 4.4 inch in length and its average breadth is 1.6. The other palæolith is distinctly of the shape of a celt or boucher which was manufactured from a fragment peeled off from a polished surface. The edges were made sharp by chipping, though the cutting edge is no longer sharp. The specimen measures 4.3 inches in height, 2.7 in breadth at the base and only 1.5 at the top. Another neat little scraper, distinctly palæolithic in type, was given to me by the uncle of Mr. P. Acharya. It is about two inches in height and possesses a sharp cutting age on one side.

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The most important feature of the Baidyapur finds is the association of palæoliths with neoliths in the same area. The previous finds brought by Mr. Acharya to the Indian Museum contain one large axe with a distinct cutting edge one side of which is raised into a distinct ridge. It measures 4.5 inches in height; the cutting edge is also 4 inches broad, while the top is only 2 inches. It is difficult to say whether it is a palæolith or a neolith as it was manufactured with a few deft strokes and did not require any clumsy chipping. The neolithic series begins with a short narrow boucher with a beautifully rounded cutting edge measuring 4.1 inches in length and 2 inches in breadth. The cutting edge and the portion adjoining it are smoothed by rubbing but the portion above that shows signs of chipping. The remaining neoliths show a distinct polish in addition to smoothing. They are for the most part small celts or bouchers in which all traces of chipping appear to have been carefully removed.

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The polish is less distinct on the smooth surface of a celt 2.8 inches in height and 1.8 inch in breadth. The cutting edge is slightly rounded and the surface of the celt shows signs of weathering. In the second specimen the cutting edge is perfectly straight, a characteristic very rare in Indian neoliths. It measures 2.8 inches in height and 1.8 inch in breadth at the bottom. The specimen is sufficiently polished to reflect light. The polish on the third specimen, a small adze, is distinctly bright. It measures 2.6 inches in height, 1.9 inch at the base and 1.1 inch at the top. The cutting edge is distinctly curved and, being a true adze, one side of it is much more convex than the other. The next specimen is a celt or a chisel. It is highly polished and almost an isosceles triangle in shape. The greatest height is 3.2 inches and the cutting edge, though slightly rounded, is exactly 1.5 inches in breadth. This particular implement must have been used either as a chisel or a wedge. Its discovery along with older palæoliths and neolithic pottery prove that the entire site was inhabited for centuries throughout the palæolithic and neolithic periods. Exactly of the same type is the most important find of the Baidyapur series, a shouldered adze of high polish¹. It links the Central Indian neoliths with the series from the Khasia hills and proves that neolithic culture in Orissa must also be divided into two different series connected with two different and long separated waves of Austric immigration into India from the East. The polish is quite distinctive of its own and is of the same type as that of the chisel celt described above. Though the cutting edge is broken the contour shows distinctly that it was an adze and not an axe, as one side is perfectly straight. The specimen measures 4 inches in height and 2 inches in breadth. Out of this height the shouldering is 1.2 and therefore only 2.8 was available for the cutting edge.

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¹ Annual Report of the Archæological survey of India. 1923-24, pp. 100-101.

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The finds from Baidyapur include a new class of neolithic implements, which look like corn-crushers to me but which Prof. Hem Chandra Das Gupta of the Presidency College trusts to be hammers. They are small truncated cones or pyramids in shape, very often with polished sides. The oldest of them is broken at top and bottom but its sides are polished. It measures 3.5 inches in height. The next one is the largest and looks like a regular pestle. The base is convex in shape and both the top and the bottom are blunt. The height is 4.7 inches and the width at the base 2.5 inches. The majority of the implements have straight sides and therefore a rectilinear base. They have pointed tops if they are well preserved. Prof. Das Gupta is of opinion that these sharper points were used for halfting. The height of one specimen is 4.5 inches and the width at the base 1.7. All four sides of this specimen are perfectly straight and polished. The next specimen is of the same kind, though less well preserved. It is 4 inches in height, 1.9 at the base and 1.8 inch on the sides. In this case the top and the bottom are both broken.

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The importance of the great neolithic site at Baidyapur lies in its association with early pre-historic pottery. I am not aware of any other pre-historic site in Northern India in which pottery was found along with pre-historic stone implements except Mohen-jo-daro and Harappa. Pottery fragments were discovered in the excavations on the southern side of the tank along with these stone implements and hundreds of them have been recovered by Mr. Paramananda Acharya for the Indian Museum at Calcutta. I selected two particularly thick specimens from a spot about a foot below the place where the polished axe or celt was found. The material is a coarse mould in which rounded pebbles of limestone were fairly abundant. On breaking one of the pottery fragments it was found that the wet material had not been passed through a sieve or even carefully selected. The vessel appears to have been hand-made or at the best turned on a hand-lathe. The next specimen was also of the same type and the material is so coarse that it looks like a fragment of a brick at the first sight. Certain specimens are thin and I selected one other fragment in which there is a fine red slip on the vase, which possessed a carinated mouth and looked very probably like a cooking vessel. Many such fragments covered with a red slip has been collected by Mr. Acharya for the Calcutta Museum. The shape is not new and exactly similar round specimens were discovered by me at Mohen-jo-daro and by Mr. Sarat Chandra Roy in the Ranchi district. The importance of the neolithic site of Baidyapur cannot be underestimated and a regular excavation may bring to light untold wealth of antiquities which may enable somebody to complete the history of the neolithic culture in India, only the latter part of which is known to us from the excavations of Mohen-jo-daro.

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That there was a distinct Copper age in the pre-historic period of the history of Orissa is proved by the discovery of stray specimens all over the country. The oldest specimen discovered is that on which a grant of the emperor Purushottama (1470-97) of the Sūrya Vaṃśa dynasty was discovered in the Balasore district. This implement is a shouldered axe in the possession of the Bhuiyans of Garhpada about 15 miles north of Balasore. Evidently, at the time of the incision of the record the people of Orissa had no idea about its original function because the writing begins near the cutting edge¹. The next discovery of copper implements was made near Sildah in the parganah of Jhatibani in the Medinipur district. The area in which this implement was discovered certainly belongs to the northern part of Orissa and was transferred along with the modern district of Medinipur to the Ṣūbah of Bengal during the rule of Nawāb Nāẓim Murshid Qulī Khān I.² It is a battle axe of the same type as those discovered at Pachamba in the Hazaribagh district, having a large round cutting edge ending in two well-marked shoulders. It is of the same type as the inscribed copper celt from Balasore. The village of Tamajuri is very near the site where the specimen was discovered.³ The most recent discoveries were recorded in 1916. Several copper axes were discovered at the village of Bhagra Pir on the banks of the Gulpha river in the Mayurbhañj State. The shape of these axes is extraordinary. They are very thin and in addition to the cutting edge, which is larger than a semicircle, there is another semicircular projection on the top, which is connected with the former by a narrow neck. The largest specimen measures 18 1/2 inches in length and 15 3/4 inches in breadth, the second one 10 inches by 8 1/2 inches and the third one 10 1/2 inches by 7 inches. According to Mr. C. T. Trechmann they are of an extraordinary thinness. The Mayurabhanj axes were certainly battle axes but of a particularly different type.¹

History of Orissa from the Earliest Times to the British Period v1.c10: Chapter III. Pre-Historic Antiquities

Chapter III. Pre-Historic Antiquities

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