An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology v1.c9.s16.3

v1.c9.s16.3

This pottery is supposed to represent the Aryans in the divide and the doab. Even if one assumes that the Aryans are within the scope of archaeological investigations [contrast 4.15] one fails to understand how a class of pottery basically found e. of the Sutlej and a culture having rice, pig and buffalo among its components can be related to anything coming from the n.-w. The suggested link-up with the grey ware of the Gandhāra Grave culture, beginning around the middle of the 2nd millennium B.C., is untenable because the cultures themselves have nothing in common. A point which is not clear to the present writer is: to what extent can the PGW be used to mark a separate cultural phase? It seems that the basic ceramic column after the OCW [4.12] level in the doab is constituted by the black-and-red ware, black-slipped ware and red ware. At Jakhera, for instance, these three pottery types occur in Pd I. The PGW first occurs only in the upper phase of Pd II A. Pd II B is said to belong to the mature PGW stage but even here the earlier pottery types continue to occur in a significant quantity. However this is a point which can be settled only by further careful research and above all by the establishment of a detailed comparative stratigraphy between all excavated post-Harappa sites in the doab and the divide.