An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology v1.c9.s7: 4.7 Copper/Bronze Age
An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology v1.c9.s7
- Language
- English
4.7 Copper/Bronze Age
v1.c9.s7.1
Of the Copper/Bronze Age cultures of the subcontinent the Harappa culture [4.9] stands out as are overridingly important one, giving s. Asia a prominent shelf in global prehistory. It has been variously called the Harappa culture, Harappa culture and Indus civilization, the first two on the ground that the culture was first recognized in 1921 as a distinctive culture at Harappa in Dt Montgomery of Punjab, Pakistan (though the remains of Harappa had been known even in the 19th century), and the last on the ground that early explorations had shown that the major sites of the culture lay in the Indus Valley. The terms have been criticized on various grounds, but the consensus is that both should be allowed to stay as they have gained wide currency. The culture was a civilization, whether defined archaeologically, where it means a culture with cities, the residents of which depend on the hinterland for their subsistence, occupying themselves with specialized jobs including crafts and trade, or whether defined anthropologically as a subclass: a more particular kind of culture and society (Redfield, 1962, pp. 364-5).
v1.c9.s7.2
The first reports of the discoveries at Mohenjo-daro, now spelt as Moen-jo daro in Pakistan (Dani, 1981, p. 10), were immediately followed by reports on the prior discovery of some Indus seals, or seals with Indus affinities, at some Mesopotanian sites. This led to the recognition of trade contacts between the two regions. Wild theories of the Indus civilization being an offshoot of the Sumerian followed (cf. Weddell, 1925, pp. 21-5). On the Indian side theories on the Indus civilization being post-Vedic in date or Vedic in character were not lacking. More useful were the explorations undertaken in Baluchistan and Sind, respectively to understand the route followed in the Indo-Mesopotanian trade and the extent of the Indus civilization. The conclusion of Stein, 1934, pp. 172-202, who explored in Baluchistan, was that in the absence of any site of respectable antiquity on the Arabian Sea coast the communication between the Indus valley and Sumer was more by land than by sea.
v1.c9.s7.3
Much more intensive and extensive work has since been done in Baluchistan (as elsewhere in the Indus civilization zone), adding new dimensions to Indo-Mesopotanian contacts. The discovery of off-shore Harappa sites on the Makran coast certainly indicate that at least part of the trade was coastal. The question of whether the trade was direct or through middlemen has also engaged attention. Perhaps it was both direct and indirect. It is now well known that at the time of Sargon the Great (24th century B.C.) merchant ships from Meluhha, Magan and Dilmun visited the docks of Akkad. One of these lands must have stood for the Indus region, though which one, is still not beyond dispute. This establishes a direct trade between the two regions. Dales, 1968, pp. 14-23, holds that 'the importance of seafaring activities for both the Harappans and Mesopotanians is strongly indicated, if not proved, by archaeological and written records.' There is evidence of indirect trade too. The discovery of a 'Persian Gulf' seal at LOTHAL and of seals with Indus motifs at Ras a Qal'a (Bahrain) and Failka (Kuwait) tends to indicate the head of the Persian Gulf as a centre of Central Place Trade as defined by Lamberg-Karlovsky, 1972. Another claimant for Central Place Trade is the Kirman area in e. Iran, which has been called the e. most boundary of effective Mesopotanian Culture-zone as well as the w. most limit of effective Harappan Culture-zone (Asthana, 1979, pp. 55-60) and which, with its rich resources of copper, tin, alabaster and steatite, might have attracted the Harappans. One of the sites in this area, Tepe Yahya, has even produced the impression of an Indus seal on a potsherd, together with pre-Harappa (Nal) pottery in the earlier levels, which, along with such other pre-Harappa sites of the late 4th and 3rd millennia B.C., is believed to be directly related in a causative manner to the later consolidation of the mature Harappa (Lamberg-Karlovsky, 1972, pp. 222-30).
v1.c9.s7.4
This brings us to the problem of the origins of the Harappa culture. Once the question of Mesopotanian origins is ruled out, attention has been diverted to the plethora of the prehistoric rural cultures [4.8] of the Indo-Iranian borderlands, including Sind, antedating the Harappa culture and some even contemporary with it. Dales has classified these cultures into six phases—A to F, each culturally and technologically more advanced than the preceding one (Dales, 1965b, pp. 257-84). We are concerned here with his phases D to F, when the settlements got more nucleated and became larger and larger. Of them the Kulli culture of Phase E, preceding and even contemporary with the Harappa, anticipated the Harappa in its contacts with w. Asia, as typical Kulli material has been found on the island of Umm an-Nar (Abu Dhabi) in the Persian Gulf region—even beyond the w. range of Harappa contacts. Dales regards this phase as the ‘final stages of development that lead to the large urban settlements in the Indus valley and to what is called the Indus or Harappan civilization’ of Phase F.
v1.c9.s7.5
Unlike Dales, who starts his phases with the early Stone Ages, Fairservis, 1967, pp. 1-48, dealing with the same region, begins his stages with what may be called Neolithic with limited cultivation (stage I), passing through developed cultivation and pastoralism and beginnings of regionalization (stage II); fully developed sedentary village life with regionalization but interregional contact (stage III) including a movement into the Indus valley; the period of urbanization (stage IV), mainly comprising the mature Harappa cities; and finally, economic decline and abandonment of the Indo-Iranian borderlands (stage V, which Dales includes within his phase F, as a late phase thereof).
v1.c9.s7.6
With the phases of Dales and stages of Fairservis may be regarded as one leading to the other, which, by implication, means that the Harappa culture was the natural culmination of a long process, they do not explain the genesis of the culture nor its ethos. As Wheeler, 1968, p. 9, says: ‘whether they (*sc.* the “ill-sorted” industries and cultures of the hills) will ever throw any very revealing light upon the origins of the great valley civilization is increasingly doubtful. None of them shows any clear primary and organic relationship with the Indus valley culture, which remains obstinately a creation of its own lowland environment.’ But not all agree with this. Thus, Fairservis, 1961, pp. 1-35, holds that the ‘essential roots’ of the culture ‘are unquestionable Iranian’, though he also believes that ‘the Harappan civilization presents an almost totally non-Iranian quality’ (Fairservis, 1967, pp. 1-48).
v1.c9.s7.7
There is little doubt that some pre-Harappa sites were on the threshold of civilization immediately before the Harappa culture. To that extent the Harappa may not be an ‘urban explosion’.
v1.c9.s7.8
There has been a tendency to see in any Chalcolithic or Bronze Age discoveries in Sind and further w. the seeds of the Harappa culture with its urbanism—such as those at Shahr-i-Sokhta (Seistan), Tepe Yahya (s.-e. Iran), Mundigak (s.-e. Afghanistan), Namazga (Turkmenia), Mehrgarh (Bolan area), etc. This has been ably refuted by Gupta, 1979, 2, p. 261: ‘there is practically nothing at Sokhta which may be called Harappan; there is hardly a couple of items at Tepe Yahya which are Harappan; there is very little Harappan at Mundigak and Namazgah IV ... At sites like Mehrgarh, it is now more than clear. The basic character of the cultures of Baluchistan and Afghanistan could not develop even a single Harappa or Ur, none of these geographical areas in e. Iran and Turkmenia could develop it. All of them witnessed the rise in culture only up to the Proto-urban stage marked by one or two monumental structures [which are a characteristic of urbanism but not necessarily the models of the Harappa ones], like Mundigak (Palace), Altin-Depe (Ziggurat), Shahr-i-Sokhta (Burnt House), Mehrgarh (monumental brick platform with a colonnade of square mud-brick pillars in its front).’ At Shortugai in n. Afghanistan, the n. most site with Harappa contacts (Dupree, 1981, pp. 103-15), there are at least seven Harappa settlements, but they were probably meant to trade in local materials and have nothing to do with the origins of the Harappa culture. Pd IV of Amri in the lower Indus valley (Casal, 1979, pp. 99-112) has mature Harappa relics but no genetic relationship with the preceding remains; it cannot therefore be regarded as having contributed anything substantial to the make-up of the Harappa culture, in spite of its having been called an ‘introduction to the history of the Indus civilization’ (Casal, 1979). At Balakot in the Las Bela valley there is an admitted hiatus of unknown duration between Pd I, pre-Harappa, and Pd II, Harappa (Dales, 1979, pp. 45-53), so that one would look in vain there for the origin of the latter.
v1.c9.s7.9
It is well known that at Mohenjo-daro, between the lowest excavated depth and the natural soil, there is a gap of about 7 m, where open excavation is rendered impossible by subsoil water (Dales, 1965a, pp. 145-50). It has been thought, not unreasonably, that this ‘unplumbed depth’ may hold the key to the solution of the problem, but in the meantime we may consider some other aspects of the problem.
v1.c9.s7.10
About 30 years back the writer explored stretches of the dried-up beds of the SARASVATĪ (the explored part presently known as the Ghaggar after the larger river into which the Sarasvati discharged itself) and of the DṚṢADVATĪ (Chautang), both in Dt Ganganagar of n. Rajasthan, respectively between the Indo-Pakistan border up to above Hanumangarh, a tahsil town on the Ghaggar, and up to Bhadra, another tashil town on the Chautang (Ghosh, 1952, pp. 38-42; 1953, pp. 31-4). At SOTHI on the Dṛṣadvatī he found a class of pottery which he called the Sothi Ware and an examination revealed that the Ware was present at almost all the Harappa sites (some 25 in number) in the Sarasvati valley. Extensive excavation at KALIBANGAN in the same valley by the ASI from 1961 to 1969 showed that the culture represented by this pottery had not only a fortified settlement of its own, later on rebuilt as a Harappa citadel (KLB-1), but occurred simultaneously with typical Harappa material in the adjacent lower city (KLB-2). The ‘pre-Harappa’ Sothi culture is now designated Kalibangan I and the mature Harappa Kalibangan II. However, the fact that Sothi/Kalibangan I pottery persisted up to half the height of KLB-2 (*IAR 1960-1*, p. 32;
v1.c9.s7.11
1961-2, pp. 40, 43), thus indicating a peaceful co-existence of the two peoples, is now either ignored or played down. At the most it is conceded that after the desertion of the pre-Harappa occupation of Kalibangan as a result of an earthquake and a flood the bearers of the Harappa culture entered the scene and laid out the settlement in their own typical way; some of the preceding ‘pre-Harappans’ or their descendants who had taken refuge elsewhere returned to the site along with the Harappans. Even if this limited concession be accepted, the authors of Kalibangan I were not merely pre-Harappa but also contemporary with the Harappa folk.
v1.c9.s7.12
The characteristic of the Sothi/Kalibangan I culture have been given in 4.8 and under KALIBANGAN. With its fortified and planned settlement, it had almost reached an urban stage of development. The people had anticipated Harappa traits in many ways. They used mud bricks with the length-breadth-thickness ratio of 4:2:1, laid in English bond (baked bricks were used for drains) in their well laid-out houses roughly oriented in cardinal directions. Of the six fabrics of their pottery [11.2] as classified by Thapar (*IAR 1962-3*, pp. 20-7), Fabrics C and F have affinities with the corresponding Harappa shapes. Of the painted designs on pottery, the fish-scale and *pipal*-leaf are common to both; so is the pottery with external ribbing which occurs at Mohenjo-daro and Harappa. External cord impression, a Sothi characteristic confirmed in Kalibangan I, occurs also on typical Harappa shapes at Mohenjo-daro. The short-stemmed dish-on-stand continues in the Harappa assemblage. Noteworthy also is the occurrence of toy-cart wheels, shell and terracotta bangles and steatite disc beads.
v1.c9.s7.13
In Punjab (India) and Haryana Sothi/Kalibangan relics are found at many a site, including two excavated ones—SISWAL and BANAWALI, respectively in the Dṛṣadvatī and Sarasvatī valleys, where the story of their priority as well as contemporaneity with the Harappa is repeated till the earlier features die out and only the latter dominate. ROPAR in the Sutlej valley has elements of the same culture mixed with mature Harappa ones. BARA in the same valley presents a complicated picture, with some Harappa material in the lower levels and an individualistic pottery with new painted designs. Modified Sothi elements have been detected at and analogies have been traced to some Baluchistan sites.
v1.c9.s7.14
To turn to Sind again. Excavation at Kot Diji, 40 km e. of Mohenjo-daro across the Indus, has yielded results of far-reaching consequence (Khan, 1981, pp. 15-24). As at KALIBANGAN, the pre-Harappa settlement here (Kot Diji I) was fortified from the very beginning, the defensive wall consisting of undressed limestone blocks at the base and of mud brick above. The buildings, of meticulous planning, in the earlier periods, were of stone and mud brick, the dimensions having the ratio of 4:2:1, the same at Kalibangan I and II. Kot Diji I came to an end with a disastrous conflagration, after which the mature Harappa culture occupied the site with a brief overlap with the earlier one. According to the excavator, ‘there are strong indications that at least in three respects the Kot Dijians were the forerunners of the Indus civilization. Firstly, town-planning and fortification; secondly, pottery decoration with fish-scale and intersecting circle patterns; and thirdly, the triangular terracotta cakes, which are not otherwise known outside the Indus civilization.’ *Mutatis mutandis* a comparison between Kalibangan I and Kot Diji I is inevitable, the chief differences being the absence of painted intersecting circles as pottery decoration and of terracotta cakes at the former site. A cognateness but not identity is recognizable.
v1.c9.s7.15
Later research on Kot Diji I has shown that ‘the continuity of several ceramic forms in the Early Harappan (as defined below, for the present Kot Diji I) is fully documented… A most recent re-analysis of small finds from the type-site (Kot Diji) clearly demonstrates continuity through the lower and upper levels with the exception of steatite beads, cubical weights, Indus script and form of female representation’ (Mughal, 1981, pp. 33-42).
v1.c9.s7.16
In 1964 the writer threw out a suggestion that the Sothi/Kalibangan I people were the one and the same as those of the mature Harappa, the latter developing out of the former. The local people, without any outside colonizers or conquerors, woke up to new ideas and worked them out vigorously, perhaps led by a few genius dictators, trade with w. Asia giving them the realization of the need of standardization. And seeing the advantages of the new order, their kindred far and wide would soon align themselves to the new march of progress. Thus would be born a people with a new ethos (Ghosh, 1965, pp. 113-56). One of the main justifications of this suggestion was that at KALIBANGAN the people of Sothi/Kalibangan I lived together with the mature Harappa people of Kalibangan II, perhaps in the same houses, making a distinction between the two impossible. This quick transformation is reflected in the ¹⁴C dates of Kalibangan I and II, which hardly show any gap between the two. All this does not involve the belief that the transformation took place at Kalibangan itself and that therefore the mature Harappa culture originated at Kalibangan.
v1.c9.s7.17
This hypothesis, though not categorically rejected, was not generally accepted on various grounds (Misra and Mate, 1965, pp. 124-56). However, it has later on been revived in a different garb. Agrawal, 1972-3, pp. 37-41, speculates that ‘the increase in agricultural produce in the villages forced the need of markets and hence a merchant class. Recurrent floods required the building of trading centres on elevated grounds—a regular feature of the Harappan citadel. This merchant class not only planned the Harappan cities, but also deliberately standardized the cultural traits of these city centres . . . . This Harappan abruptness was deliberate and not a process of natural growth.’ Not all ‘pre-Harappa’ settlements need have felt the impact of the new order; conversely, the Harappa people themselves might have established their own rural settlements.
v1.c9.s7.18
We shall revert to the question later on, as it has vital significance on Harappa origins. In the mean time let us see the results of the recent explorations in the valley of the dry Hakra (continuation of the Ghaggar-Sarasvatī) in the Bahawalpur region of Pakistan.
v1.c9.s7.19
It has been stated above that the Ghaggar-Sarasvatī valley had been explored in 1950-2 from the present-day Indo-Pakistan border upwards beyond Hanumangarh. The exploration also covered the Dṛṣadvatī valley up to Bhadra, the whole area comprised in Dt Ganganagar. The exploration revealed sites with the following cultures: (1) Sothi, now stratigraphically placed by the excavation at KALIBANGAN; (2) Harappa; (3) PGW [4.15; 11.14]; and (4) an early historical culture called Rang Mahal after the type-site[11.24]. Mughal’s extensive exploration in the Hakra valley between 1974 and 1977 (Mughal, 1981, pp. 33-42) revealed a fivefold sequence of cultures chronologically arranged as follows: (1) Hakra Wares (4th millennium B.C.), with mostly handmade pottery with multiple incised lines or with the surface roughened by a thick coat of mud mixed with pottery either all over the body or just below the neck. This pottery is said to recall that from the earliest levels of Jalilpur in the Ravi basin (Mughal, 1974, pp. 106-13). (2) Early Harappan, related to Kot Diji. (3) Mature Harappan, related to Mohenjo-daro and Harappa. (4) Late Harappan, related to Cemetery H. And (5) Post- or Non-Harappan, related to the PGW and red wares. Of these, (1) is not reported in the Ghaggar-Sarasvatī valley, though it is not unlikely that a renewed exploration of that valley, or even a re-examination of the pottery collected during 1950-2, would reveal its existence. (4), related to Cemetery H of Harappa, is also absent, though stray sherds of that culture are reported from some sites in the Sutlej valley and further e.; at any rate, the Cemetery H culture does not seem to have had any significant role in the late Harappa period of India. The rest of Mughal’s culture, (2), (3) and (4) are fully represented on the Indian side. What, however, is very significant is that Mughal has no doubt in his mind on the derivation of the Harappa from the Kot Diji/Sothi/Kalibangan I complex and calls it ‘early Harappan’, much more boldly than the writer who hesitatingly called it ‘proto-Harappa’.
v1.c9.s7.20
The term ‘early Harappan’ of Mughal has now been widely accepted (cf. Dales, 1973, pp. 157-70) and carries with it the explicit implication that Sothi/Kalibangan I represents an early phase of the Harappa culture. But the acceptance is qualified as follows: while the term is appropriate for the early levels of Kot Diji, the Sothi levels of KALIBANGAN and pre-defence material at Harappa, ‘the early levels of such sites as Amri do not contain material that anticipates that of the Indus civilization and should be classified as belonging to an early Indus culture of still undetermined affinity. Even those sites that belong to the early formative phase of the Indus civilization should, on present evidence, be regarded as relatively independent from one another. They shared certain common traits, styles and techniques that eventually coalesced to form the mature Indus civilization, but originally these sites had other traits that were peculiar in their micro-region’ (Dales, 1973, pp. 157-76). According to Mughal, 1981, p. 36, the ‘early Harappan’ encompassed the entire Indus and Ghaggar-Hakra region, including the Khirthar and Sulaiman piedmonts and even penetrated into Baluchistan. In India the extent of Sothi/Kalibangan pottery has been dealt with in [4.8].
v1.c9.s7.21
The writer’s previously-mentioned hypothesis, modified by Agrawal, has bloomed into a full-fledged model in a recent writing of Gupta, 1975-6, pp. 141-6, who concedes that the Kot Diji-Sothi complex provided a strong base achieved by a long process of evolution. ‘Therefore,’ says he, ‘what is mysterious to us is not so much the origin of the basic form of the Harappa culture but the suddenness with which it appears on the so-called pre-Harappan sites’ [Kot Diji and Kalibangan] which Gupta calls the ‘First Cities in [Pakistan and] India’. The much-needed opportunity for the take-off towards a richer and more complex urban set-up was provided when natural calamities overtook them—e.g. tectonic disturbances at KALIBANGAN and a devastating fire at Kot Diji, there being no evidence of the bearers of the Harappa culture being responsible for the destruction of the settlements. ‘Calamities themselves generate, almost all of a sudden, a number of new forces and factors which successfully bring about socio-economic changes of vast dimensions . . . The emancipator, one or a group of a selected few, becomes the hero . . . Herein lies the birth of a citadel . . . To us, the citadel of Kalibangan was more modest in dimensions and contents than the citadels of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro . . . Obviously, we visualize the birth of twin-mound system in the lower Sarasvatī basin and its later movement in the Ravi and Indus plains . . . “The plan of the Harappan fortification followed the plan of the pre-Harappan fortification while the roads followed a new plan” (Thapar, 1978, p. 98) . . . Nothing of the kind is witnessed at Harappa and Mohenjo-daro; they were planned from the very beginning . . . To us it appears that the Harappa ideology was basically mercantile . . . The overall form of the Harappa culture appears to have been determined by the mercantile ideology whose pace is usually extremely rapid.'
v1.c9.s7.22
The recognizes (1) a Sothi-Kot Diji complex; (2) an internal evolution in the complex as a result of natural calamities, giving rise to 'leaders' who erected citadels for themselves, producing the twin-mound aspect of the Harappa settlements; and (3) the rise of a merchant class which rapidly transformed the society into the typical Harappa culture. Gupta adds that this process of transformation began in the Ghaggar-Hakra basin, which abounds in Sothi/Kalibangan I/early Harappa sites more than in any other region.
v1.c9.s7.23
This bold interpretation of the data requires serious consideration, though in some respects it is open to objections. For example, the modestness of the Kalibangan citadel need not necessarily indicate its chronological priority to the Mohenjo-daro one; being a smaller settlement, Kalibangan's requirements must have been correspondingly limited. Again, mercantilism, as manifest in trade, is more obvious in the larger settlements than in the Hakra-Ghaggar valley.
v1.c9.s7.24
The Harappa culture, having attained its maturity in the n., moved to the s., where it met different peoples, unless they chose to settle on new grounds. At SURKOTADA in Kutch there were a number of pre-Harappa and non-Harappa ceramic traditions found mixed up with the pottery of the newcomers right from the beginning. There does not seem to be any pre-Harappa level at RANGPUR, though there is an undulying deposit with a pre-pottery microlithic [Microlithic, 4.5] industry, which far antedated the Harappa culture. At ROJDI (Shrinathgarh) the earliest settlement had Harappa pottery mixed with a buff ware, grey ware and micaceous red ware. LOTHAL had a settlement with the micaceous red ware when the bearers of the Harappa culture arrived there and raised on it buildings to suit their requirements. The Prabhas Ware [11.8] has a few shapes such the stud-handled bowl, a feature of the Gujarat Harappa. Of a different context is the Kayatha Ware [11.7], with its focus in w. Malwa, one of whose shapes—the large jar with heavily beaded rim—has similarity with a corresponding Harappa type. All these are to be ignored in the present context of the origins of the Harappa culture.
v1.c9.s7.25
It is admitted that the causes of the decline of the Harappa culture were different in different regions of its currency, apart, perhaps, from one common factor—loss of trade with the w. The decline was marked by the dispersal of the people from Sind valley; it is remarkable that there is hardly anything which could be called 'late Harappa' in Baluchistan and Sind, unless the Jhukar culture represents a late form of the Harappa as supposed by some. (The shabby buildings with their non-conformity to the original town-planning of Mohenjo-daro are only a degeneration of the mature Harappa and should be distinguished from the late Harappa.) With the decay of the Sind cities the people moved e. wards by either the SARASVATĪ or the SUTLEJ route, where they met the early Harappans who had already settled in Punjab, Haryana and even in the upper Yamuna valley. The late Harappa culture, marked by lack of trade and of steatite seals and weights and by a modification of pottery types together with the absence of some mature Harappa shapes and decoration, is the post-urban phase of the Harappa culture. In Gujarat the Harappa sites of LOTHAL and RANGPUR were re-occupied by an impoverished people who are believed to have moved elsewhere due to the havoc of floods. But the late Harappa Rangpur II B was ceramically different from the corresponding Lothal B, indicating loss of contact between the late Harappa people even at sites not far removed from each other. The late Harappa Rangpur II B was, to use the excavator's labels, succeeded by Rangpur II C and III, in which a new ware, the Lustrous Red Ware [11.9], makes its appearance. The ware occurs in limited quantities outside Gujarat, at the Chalcolithic sites in c. and w. India [4.14.5, 6]. In his attempt to project Harappa elements into the heart of India the excavator of Rangpur sees in the Lustrous Red Ware an evolved form of the Harappa ceramics. This however is extremely doubtful.
v1.c9.s7.26
Through the Tapti estuary, where a minor Harappa settlement occurs at BHAGATRAV, the Harappa people moved inwards along the Tapti valley and founded settlements in Dt Dhule, some five of which have been identified, two of them with exclusively late Harappa material and the rest with that material mixed with the Jorwe [11.11] and Savalda Wares [11.12]; at one of the sites of the latter category was a sherd with two Indus characters. Further s., in the Godavari valley, at DAIMABAD on the Pravara, re-excavation has revealed late Harappa material overlying the Savalda material and followed successively by pottery of the buff-and-cream, Malwa [4.14.5] and Jorwe [4.14.6] cultures. The late Harappa here occupies a respectable area of 20 hectares, with mud walls, though mud bricks lining a grave have the Harappa ratio of 4:2:1. The paintings on the pots betray a degeneration. Daimabad perhaps marks the s. most settlement of the late Harappa culture (Sali, 1970, pp. 94-101; *IAR 1975-6*, p. 31).
v1.c9.s7.27
The rigid Harappa standards disappeared with the mature Harappa, and it is futile to expect any uniformity in the local phases of the late Harappa cultures. Even any intensive regional study remains to be undertaken. But it is certain that the late Harappa people gradually lost their individuality and got lost in other populations. While it is true that a people never die out, they can certainly lose their culture.
v1.c9.s7.28
The Copper Hoard [4.11] and OCW cultures [4.12] present many enigmatic features. To deal with the OCW first. Its chief characteristics are that it is seemingly ill-fired and rubs off easily; the edges of the sherds are 'rolled', which is ascribed to the pottery having remained submerged in water for a long time (Lal, 1968, pp. 857-63), though prolonged exposure to wind is also believed to be capable of producing indentical results. Another feature is that at many sites the pottery is not found in regular layers but in an undifferentiated silty soil, perhaps another indication of flood. But there are sites in which this feature is absent; also at some sites the pottery is well-baked and bears black-on-red paintings. Such sites are LAL QILA in Dt Bulandshahr and JODHPURA in Dt Jaipur, the latter outside the focal zone of the OCW, viz. the upper Ganga-Yamuna doab. It has been thought that the sites with the Ware can be classed into (1) genuine OCW sites, (2) sites with Harappa (late Harappa?) influence, and (3) probable (late?) Harappa sites with OCW influence. To add to the complexity, Gaur, 1974, pp. 53-62, suspects Sothi influence in the Lal Qila pottery. All this is confusing enough, and it may not be unreasonably held that the identity of the OCW as a distinct and individual industry has yet to be established to everybody's satisfaction. (See *Purātattva*, 5, 1971-2, for the proceedings of a seminar on OCW.)
v1.c9.s7.29
The excavated sites show a medium degree of rural culture. The LAL QILA pottery is well-fired (which goes against the very definition of OCW) and well-decorated with incised designs, graffiti and paintings in black pigment over a smooth red-slipped surface, showing a degree of sophistication (Gaur, 1974, p. 54). There are well-preserved floors with post-holes, plaster fragments and even brickbats, unbaked and baked. Among the other antiquities are terracotta objects including human figurines, bangles and beads and stone and bone objects. Not much is reported on JODHPURA, the only significant mention being that of bits of copper.
v1.c9.s7.30
Thermoluminiscent dates of the OCW range from 2600 to 1180 B.C., giving archaeologists a wide range of a millennium and a half of choose his date. Perhaps a date of about the middle of the 2nd millennium B.C. would be a near approximation. The most important feature of the OCW 'culture', with all due qualifications, is its highly probable association with the Copper Hoards [4.11]—a distinctive class of copper (some bronze) objects—weapons and otherwise. At first based on circumstantial grounds, this association is now believed to be firmly established by the excavation at SAIPAI, Dt Etawah.
v1.c9.s7.31
While it must be specified that any find of a copper object does not qualify it to be regarded as belonging to a Copper Hoard, it may be so regarded provisionally if its shape is typical of Copper Hoard objects. Flat celts of copper are common to both the Harappa culture and the Copper Hoards.
v1.c9.s7.32
Numerous have been the theories on the authorship of the Hoards; they have been variously ascribed to Harappa refugees, Aryans and itinerant craftsmen. The question has been thoroughly examined by Lal (*AI*, 7, 1951, pp. 20-39), who comes to the conclusion that the Hoards were produced by the Mundas, Santhals and other tribes of the Proto-Australoid group of the Indian population.
v1.c9.s7.33
While the question may be allowed to rest at that, several problems are involved. In the first place, an anthropomorphic figure, a typical Copper Hoard object, was found in a regular Harappa deposit at LOTHAL. (Agrawal's attempt, 1973, pp. 102-3, to dissociate the object from the anthropomorphs of the Copper Hoard on the ground that it has a flat, instead of nail-head, section is unconvincing.) Two harpoons and 13 copper rings, both typical of the Copper Hoards, from MITATHAL, a Harappa and late Harappa site, may not be without significance. Again, the likely association of the Hoards with the OCW creates problems rather than solving them: while the OCW had its focus in the Ganga-Yamuna doab, Copper Hoards have been found over a much wider area which had never known the OCW. Thus, GUNGERIA in Dt Balaghat has produced the largest hoard. MODHERA in Dt Mahesana has one. Pondi in Dt Rewa is another Hoard site. KALLUR in Dt Raichur has produced a few specimens. PARIHATI in Dt Midnapur has five double-axes, a bar celt and a ring-like object. Objects are being increasinly reported from Rajasthan outside the doab (Agarwala, 1977, p. 68; 1978, p. 123; 1979, p. 91). These are only a few instances that jar an otherwise plausible theory.
v1.c9.s7.34
The last item on our list of the Copper/Bronze Age cultures is the black-and-red culture (non-Harappa, non-Megalithic). Black-and-red ware has been found in varied cultural associations in 26 different contexts, its shapes differing from culture to culture. Singh, 1979, pp. 267-83, after an exhaustive review of the ware, comes to the inevitable conclusion that it has neither a typological nor a cultural personality. Here we are concerned only with the black-and-red ware that followed the OCW in the Ganga-Yamuna doab, only at two sites—NOH and ATRANJIKHERA—and forms a distinct level preceding the PGW, which is practically the sole justification for regarding it as a separate culture in the Ganga-Yamuna valley. At other PGW sites it forms an integral part of the assemblage of the PGW and associated wares [11.14], persists in the NBPW levels as well and shares its shapes with the PGW and NBPW. Its pre-PGW phase must have been of short duration, and while not much is reported about the cultural equipment of the level bearing it, it could not have materially differed from that of the PGW.
v1.c9.s7.35
With the PGW [4.15; HASTINĀPURA] we arrive at the Iron Age in n. India, though its co-occurrence at Bhagwanpura^2 and elsewhere with the late Harappa requires further investigation. Either the late Harappa survived too long at these sites to see the arrival of the PGW people or the early stages of the PGW antedated the advent of iron.
v1.c9.s7.36
The PGW age is an important landmark in the archaeology of n. India. It coincides in time and space with the later Vedic Age, which may be regarded as the proto-early-historical age of India. Sharma, 1975-6, pp. 132-8, demonstrates the similarity, at least the lack of contradiction, between the data derivable from the later Vedic literature and from the excavated levels of the PGW. Says Sankalia, 1974, pp. 51-2: ‘The Painted Grey Ware truly represents the ancestral form of life, seen today in the Hindus of northern India, particularly the Gangetic valley. Its pottery—including the coarse red, bright red and fine black wares—does not contain any exotic form or forms like the dish-on-stand, pots with spouts of a peculiar nature, barring, of course, a solitary specimen of a grooved grey ware stem and the small feeding cup . . . It would be logical to think that the Painted Grey Ware represents more the dawn of the historical period than the end of the prehistoric.’ With the NBPW culture, partly overlapping with and then succeeding the PGW culture, we enter into the full-fledged early historical age [4.18].
v1.c9.s7.37
Agrawal, D.P., 1972-3, in *Purātattva*, 6; 1973, *Copper Bronze Age in India*, New Delhi. Agrawala, R.C., 1977, in *Man & Environment*, 1; 1978, *ibid.*, 2; 1979, *ibid.*, 3. Asthana, S., 1979, in *Man & Environment*, 3. Casal, J.-M., 1979, in Agrawal, D.P., & Chakrabarti, D.K., *Essays in Indian Protohistory*, Delhi. Dales, G.F., 1965a, in *Arch.*, 18, 2; 1965b, in Ehrich, R.W., ed., *Chronologies in Old World Arch.*, Chicago; 1968, in *Jour. American Oriental Soc.*, 88, 1; 1973, in *S. Asian Arch.*, Park Ridge; 1979, in *Man & Environment*, 3. Dani, A.H., ed., 1981, *Indus Civilization—New Perspectives*, Islamabad. Dupree, L., 1981, in *ibid.* Fairservis, W.A., 1961, in *Novitates*, 2055, New York; 1967, in *ibid.*, 2302. Gaur, R.C., 1974, in van Lohuizen-de Leeuw, J.E., & Ubaghs, J.M.M., ed., *S. Asian Arch. 1973*, Leiden. Ghosh, A., 1952, in *Bull. National Inst. of Sciences in India*, 1; 1953, in *East & West*, April; 1965, in Misra, V.N., & Mate, M.S., ed., *Indian Prehistory: 1964*, Poona. Gupta, S.P., 1975-6, in *Purātattva*, 8; 1979, *Arch. of Soviet c. Asia & the Indian Borderlands*, 2 vols., Delhi. Khan, F.A., 1981, in Dani, A.H., ed., *Indus Civilization—New Perspectives*, Islamabad. Lal, B.B., 1968, in *American Anthropologist*, 70. Lamberg-Karlovsky, C.C., 1972, in *Jour. American Oriental Soc.*, 92, 2. Misra, V.N., & Mate, M.S., ed., 1965, *Indian Prehistory: 1964*, Poona. Mughal, M.R., 1974, in *Arch.*, 27.2; 1981, in Dani, A.H., ed., *Indus Civilization—New Perspectives*, Islamabad. Possehl, G.L., ed., 1979, *Ancient Cities of the Indus*, New Delhi (containing many reprinted important articles, some of them referred to here, and an exhaustive bibliography). Redfield, R., 1962, in Redfield, M.P., ed., *Human Nature & the Study of Society*, Chicago. Sali, S.A., 1970, in *Jour. Oriental Soc. Baroda*, 20, 2. Sankalia, H.D., 1974, in *Purātattva*, 7. Sharma, R.S., 1975-6, in *ibid.*, 8. Singh, H.N., 1979, in Agrawal, D.P., & Chakrabarti, D.K., ed., *Essays in Indian Protohistory*, Delhi. Stein, A., 1934, in *Jour. Royal Anthropological Soc.*, 64. Thapar, B.K., 1978, in *S. Asian Arch.*, London. Waddell, L.A., 1925, in *Ind. Hist. Quarterly*, 1. Wheeler, M., 1968, *Indus Civilization*, Cambridge. For sites see respective entries in vol. II.—A. GHOSH