An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology v1.c9.s14.t1.19

v1.c9.s14.t1.19

Barring a few references in the Purāṇas and the *Mahābhārata* to the existence of tribes like the Nāgas and Haihayas, till the fifties of the present century practically nothing was known of the post-Stone Age cultures of the region before the 6th century B.C. Our knowledge of these cultures is entirely due to the investigations undertaken during the last three decades. With the clues supplied by the discoveries of V.S. Wakankar and others, the Deccan College and the M.S. Univ. of Baroda undertook large-scale excavations at MAHESHWAR and NAVDATOLI between 1952 and 1959. Later on three other sites were excavated: NAGDA in 1955-56 by the ASI; ERAN for several seasons since 1960 by the Univ. of Saugar; and KAYATHA during 1965-6 by the Vikram University and again by the Deccan College in 1968. [To this list has to be added BESNAGAR on the Betwa excavated by the ASI in 1963-5 and later, with incompletely published results.] While the other sites have made known only one culture—the Malwa culture, Kayatha (ancient Kāpitthaka) has revealed two more cultures—the Kayatha and Banas [4.14.1] cultures—antedating the Malwa culture. The available ¹⁴C dates, which place all these cultures in the 2nd millennium B.C., are as follows: Kayatha culture, 2000 to 1800 B.C.; Banas culture 1700 to 1500 B.C.; and Malwa culture, 1500 to 1200 B.C.