An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology v1.c9.s9.49

v1.c9.s9.49

We may now pass on to the ¹⁴C dates which offer ‘direct’ evidence. Here however the difficulty is twofold. In the first place, we do not have ¹⁴C dates for many of the well-known sites, e.g. Harappa itself, and in certain cases, e.g. Mohenjo-daro, the dates are available only for the later part of the occupation. Secondly, though offering direct evidence, the ¹⁴C dates themselves are not unassailable, partly because of the possibility of contamination of the samples (in some cases) and more because of the now well-established deviation between the dates obtained by this method on the one hand and those by the astronomical/historical/tree-ring methods on the other [5.3]. To get over the drawback of contamination, erratic or incongruous dates shall be discounted. As to the deviation problem, MASCA correction (Ralph *et al.*, 1973), which is acceptable to most scholars, shall be applied. With the foregoing limitations the emergent picture is as follows.