History of Technology in India, Vol. I: From Antiquity to c. 1200 A.D. v1.c17.s1.2

v1.c17.s1.2

(i) *Archaeological Excavations*: This is an on-going tradition of research unearthing material traces of old civilizations. The pre-Harappan sites like Mehargarh, the Harappan, post-Harappan and the Historical period sites have shown a bewildering variety of gems, minerals, artifacts and metals, derived from specific minerals, and also many archaeomaterials. A central issue is whether some of the materials were imported from outside the international borders or fabricated out of ores and minerals mined from the Indian subcontinent. The question of ore-artifact correlation has been widely debated and would be briefly examined in this paper.