An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology v1.c9.s7.20

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].