An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology v2.c30.108

v2.c30.108

Though no complete house plan has been found, a fair idea can be had by piecing together the available evidence. The houses were rectangular on plan and walls constructed of bamboo screen plastered with mud. There were wooden posts to support the wall screen and thatched roof. An extant continuous floor, 2·4 × 4·8 m is rammed and plastered, with a saddle quern [6.19] embedded and storage jars partly buried in it. Hearths, one of them measuring 30 × 30 × 25 cm, are sunk in the floor, their sides and bottom plastered, with a mud column constructed over a flat stone placed in the centre of the hearth. The cooking pot was evidently placed on the top of the column with fire all around. Similar hearths have been noticed at NEVASA and at INAMGAON. Circular mud platforms, 25 to 30 cm in diameter, are possibly meant to hold pots. Such circular mud platforms of larger dimensions have been found at INAMGAON, where the local people still make similar platforms and place storage bins over them. The area surrounding the floor being disturbed, the house to which it pertained could have been bigger. The saddle-quern indicates the practice of crushing grains on it with a rubber stone but the diet must have been supplemented by hunting, fishing and killing of domesticated animals.