Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c10.s3.t2: Ganeshwar-Jodhpura Culture
Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c10.s3.t2
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Ganeshwar-Jodhpura Culture
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The clearest evidence about the Pre-Harappan chalcolithic culture in Rajasthan has been obtained in the Ganeshwar-Jodhpura area of the northern Aravalli near Jaipur. (Agrawala, 1982, 1984) Situated on the right bank of river Sabi and 100 km from Jaipur, Jodhpura has yielded Ochre Coloured Pottery, the later phase of the deposit having been carbon-dated as 2500 BC. Thus, beginning of this ware may have been as early as 3000 BC. The ware is red-slipped painted pottery with profuse linear designs, executed with the help of a sharp, short, comb-like instrument.
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Associated with similar OCP pottery is the nearby chalcolithic site of Ganeshwar which was discovered on 30 November 1977. Situated 15 km from Neem-Ka-Thana, this site (lat. 37° 40' north and long. 75° 51.30' east) yielded huge quantities of copper objects (more than 1000 were obtained by 1979). Deeper digging has shown earlier stone-age culture, and thus it is proven that Ganeshwar moved from the neolithic to chalcolithic stage before the Harappan era.
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The copper objects included arrowheads, spearheads, fish-hooks, spiral headed pins, celts, thin blades, rings, bangles, chisels, balls etc. This is the first time in the history of Indian archaeology that such a rich find of prehistoric copper objects has been found at a single small site. The presence of a round terracotta cake reminds us of similar sacrificial items at Kalibangan. The thin blades, arrowheads and fish-hooks were used in the Pre-Harappan Sothi culture sites and later in the Harappan culture sites. Not a single specimen resembles the Copper Hoard material from the Ganga-Yamuna Doab.
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Arrowheads
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Cut out of thin sheets, 400 arrowheads 5-6.5 cm in length were of barbed variety and used for hunting. Some with curved points and some with curved tip, these arrowheads without any perforation as in Bagor samples, were mounted on wooden sticks and fastened with a white glue. Some of these were found in the Harappan level at Banawali. The discovery of microliths with copper arrowheads shows that the people of Ganeshwar were still at the hunting stage. The arrowheads assay: copper 96.5 per cent, arsenic 1, silver 0.3, zinc 0.25, iron 0.2, tin 0.2, nickel 0.04 and lead 0.03 per cent. It is apparent that some arsenic alloying was done, as in Mohenjo-Daro objects. Like the Harappan spearheads, the Geneshwar spearheads were also very thin.
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Fish-Hooks
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At Ganeshwar, about 50 fish-hooks were found. These did not have barbs. The area is not very far from Bairat, the ancient capital of the Matsya Deśa and dwelling place of the minas tribe. Similar fish-hooks were recovered from the early levels of Monhenjo-Daro and Harappa; absence of arrowhead and fish-hooks in the upper levels indicate the transition from rural to urban culture in these sites. Kalibangan II however continued the use of fish-hooks.
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Celts
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More than 60 copper celts were obtained from Ganeshwar. These measured 20-25 cm in length and weighed 1-1.5 kg. All these flat celts were prepared from molds by the *cire perdue* techniques. Metallographic examination reveals that axes were cast in mould and edges bevelled by hot and cold forging. Some were cast in unventillated molds, but others in well-ventillated ones. (Allchins, 1983: 253) The name of a small Kulhāḍe-kā-Johaḍ (pond of Axes) near Ganeshwar testify to the *kulhāḍā* (axe) making tradition in this area.
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The butt portion of the celts have round indentations, the numbers of which (4-16) are in different combinations of 1-6 dots. These numbers probably reflect the contemporary system of simple arithmetic. The indentations were made with pointed copper drills which have also been found in the site. Such indentation marks were found in the later day celts of Kayatha and Navdatoli. That lead alloying might have been done during the melting of the original ingot is suggested from the analysis of a typical copper celt: copper 97 per cent, lead 1 per cent, nickel 0.5, arsenic 0.3, silver 0.2, zinc 0.1 and tin 0.1 per cent. Zinc, silver and other elements might have come from the local ore constituents.
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Significance of the Ganeshwar Discovery
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Several other facts may be mentioned to establish that the Ganeshwar-Jodhpura region was indeed one of the earliest Pre-Harappan centres for copper technology. In this hilly region are located the ancient rivers or river-tracks (flowing northward) of Kantli, Dohan, Kasaunti, Sota, Sobi etc. (arranged in order — western to eastern location). Ganeshwar is at the source of Kantli whose ancient track used to flow past Jhunjhunu meeting Drishadvati near Bhadra and Kalibangan as testified by the landsat imagery. Thus there was no difficulty for the copper goods to be despatched to the Sarasvati-Drishadvati complex and also along Hakra towards the Indus sites.
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The Dohan river originates from the north of the Baleshwar copper mines. North of Ganeshwar is situated old copper workings of Behar, and on the right bank of Dohan have been found OCP potteries and copper sheet artefacts. Dohan river which is not very far from Khetri, and once reached the ancient site of Mitathal was probably named after the tradition (extraction of metal) in the valley.
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The river Kasaunti (Krishnavati) takes its origin from Dariba copper mines and on its right bank, microliths, OCP wares and copper slags have been found on the hills of Mothooka. In the area of Baleshwar-Dariba, hillock type mounds of copper slags have been found in association with OCP ware. Copper slag along with OCP has been found at Buchera, the source of river Sota which is not far from the mines of Ahirwala and Cheeplata. Cheeplata is full of OCP and microliths. We have already mentioned that the famous Jodhpura, after which the culture is named, is located on the right bank of river Sabi.
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Thus, the river valley system and the copper bearing hills around Ganeshwar ushered in an indigenous chalcolithic culture in the Pre- and Early-Harappan era.
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R.C. Agrawala (1980) believes that the copper hoard from Kurada, located 20 km from Parbatsar in the Nagaur district also originated from the Ganeshwar locality. Of the 103 copper objects acquired in 1935, there were 55 rings, 21 curved thin blade or choppers (similar to those found in the Pre-Harappan levels of Mitathal and Kalibangan) 11 chisels, 4 ordinary bowls, 7 celts and 5 channel-spouted bowls. The cults had round dentation marks as in the Ganeshwar samples. The channel-spouted copper bowls resemble the later day Navdatoli objects and the Western Asian ceramic bowls. Probably these objects used to be sent through the land trade routes to Kot Diji, Mohenjo-Daro etc. On the same route fine-grained yellow Jaisalmer stone was also sent for the Harappan towns. (Marshall 1931: 31)
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Agrawala (1982) also reported some more pre-historic copper items which might have been made, following the Ganeshwar tradition: two long copper celts from Sabania, and copper arrow fragments from Pugal in the Bikaner district, six heavy 28 cm bar celts from Nandlalpura, district Jaipur, one heavy bar celt from Ekalasimgha, district Ajmer etc. Similar objects from Padliya, Jhadol, Elana and other sites in south Rajasthan might have originated from Ganeshwar or the contemporary site of Bagor which developed chalcolithic tradition around 2800 BC. Later we would discuss the Ahar chalcolithic tradition (2200 BC onwards) which probably started with Bagor practice as the example.
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The most notable collection of the Ganeshwar copper ware was probably in the Drishadvati-Sarasvati valley Sothi culture sites — later developed as Harappan sites — such as Kalibangan, Banawali, Mitathal etc.