An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology v1.c9.s7.19

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’.