A History of Agriculture in India v1.c16: Chapter 10. The Pre-Harappan Peasant Communities of Baluchistan and the Domestication of Animals
A History of Agriculture in India v1.c16
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Chapter 10. The Pre-Harappan Peasant Communities of Baluchistan and the Domestication of Animals
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The arid land of Baluchistan with its barren mountains was green and fertile about five thousand years ago. Sir Aurel Stein discovered a large series of stone-built dams and terraces, called *gabarbands* by the Baluchis, which were designed to aid the irrigation of fields. The *gabarbands* indicate climatic conditions with a greater rainfall.
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Piggott, on the grounds of techniques employed in pottery-painting, has proposed a broad classification of the pre-Harappan Baluchi cultures as below:
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A. *Buff-ware Cultures*
1. *The Quetta Culture* (from sites in the Bolan Pass)
2. *The Amri-Nal Culture* (from two sites, the first in Sind, and the second at the head of the Nal Valley in Baluchistan)
3. *The Kulli Culture* (from a site in Kolwa in South Baluchistan) B. *Red-ware Cultures*
4. *The Zhob Cultures* (from sites in the Zhob Valley of northern Baluchistan)
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‘The variety in styles and techniques among the products of the Baluchistan communities—the strongly individualized groups of pottery types’, states Piggott, ‘permits us to visualize the existence of little peasant states, each more or less self-contained, within a natural area such as the Zhob Valley, or those of the Kolwa and Maskai. The similarities we can detect between the localized cultures are the outcome of common necessities among farming peoples working a difficult land.’¹
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¹ Piggott, S. *Prehistoric India*, p. 134
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A pre-pottery microlithic culture has been discovered from Kili Gul Mohammed which has been dated early fourth millennium B.C. These people lived in houses built of mud bricks. They kept sheep and possibly cultivated crops. Period II yielded hand-made pottery and Period III both hand-made and wheel-turned pottery as well as copper. Damb Sadaat shows three periods, with somewhat continued development, dating from 2528 or 2625 B.C. for Period I and from 2554, 2425 or 2220 B.C. for Period II. The wheel-turned pottery, terracotta figurines and copper objects are among some of the finds. Rana Ghundai yielded a complete sequence through a number of periods. At Rana Ghundai, the inhabitants of the earliest phase used hand-made pottery and flint blades, tended cattle and Fig. 53a. Neolithic cultures of Indian subcontinent lived in huts. The location of some of these sites and their relative age is given in a map and a bar diagram prepared by B.K. Thapar (Fig. 53). As they lie between the higher inland plateau of central Asia and the low flat plains of Sind, the possibilities of influences from important settlements round the south-east of the Caspian Sea, Tepe Hissar, Anau and Namasga Tepe in Russian Turkestan can hardly be overlooked.
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INDIA EXCAVATED SITES IN DIFFERENT REGIONS PRESENT-DAY CITIES AND TOWNS
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Fig. 53b. Neolithic cultures of Indian subcontinent and relative chronology based on 14C dating (After B.K. Thapar)
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Stone saddle-querns and riders from Kulli attest corn-growing. Chert blades from Shahi-tump and Mazena-damb are comparable with those in the Amri-Nal Culture and, according to Piggott, seem to be archaistic survivals.
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Apart from the technique of potteries, it is the representation of domestic animals which provides us with a clue to the life of the people. The typical painted decoration on Kulli ware consists of zones of non-representational motifs between which, in many instances, runs a frieze of naturalistic representations of animals and plants. The frieze represents a standard scene, in which two humped cattle dominate, in grotesquely elongated form, a landscape with formalized trees and rows of diminutive, stylized wild goats (Capra hircus). The cattle are usually shown as tethered, either to one of the trees between which they stand or to a peg. In between a bull and cow is a branch of a pipal-tree with heart-shaped leaves (Fig. 54). Comparison may be made with the bull in a Mughal painting of the eighteenth century (Fig. 55). The resemblance between the two is remarkable.
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The cattle are of the typical humped form (Bos indicus). The figures of goats, which so often accompany those of the cattle on the vase-paintings, are more stylized, and represent the wild goat (*Capra hircus*), with curved, swept-back horns (Fig. 54). Fish are sometimes used to form a continuous band of design on shallow plates, where they follow one another, head-to-tail, in a narrow circular zone.
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Cattle figurines were found in very large numbers—66 were found at Kulli, and no less than 85 were found in a restricted area on the lowest occupation-floor at Shahi-tump. The figures are 75 to 100 millimetres long, and the characteristic feature of the zebu cattle, i.e. a well-developed hump, is well enough suggested (Fig. 54 E).
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The animal bones recovered comprise the lumped ox (*Bos indicus*), domestic sheep (*Ovis orientalis vignei*), and the ass (*Equus asinus*).
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The evidence from paintings on pottery and the recovery of bones of animals leads us to the conclusion that the Baluchi farmers had domesticated goats, sheep, zebu cattle and the ass.
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There is no doubt that the domestication of goats, sheep and zebu cattle took place in Baluchistan. According to Carl Sauer, the hearths of domestication are to be sought in areas of marked diversity of animals, where there was a large reservoir of genes to be sorted out and recombined. So far as the above-mentioned animals are concerned, Baluchistan was such an area.
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How were the wild animals domesticated? Carl Sauer explains: ‘Taming of the wild again may be thought of as beginning by infant capture, nursing by a foster mother, and raising the young in close association with man. A plausible reconstruction is thus: man returning from the hills with a kid or lamb, woman rearing it, and children growing up with the young animal and leading it out to browse. In such a gentle captivity, breeding might occur and thus domestication begin.’² The domestication of goat and sheep took place in the pre-agricultural phase. When the nomadic man with the aid of the dog brought sheep and goat under his control, it was the first step towards food production.
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² Sauer, C. *Agricultural Origins and Dispersals*, p. 86
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Goat (*Capra hircus*). The wild ancestors of domesticated breeds of goat are known to a large extent. The wild goat (*Capra hircus*) is found in the barren hills of Baluchistan and western Sind (Fig. 56). It is the chief ancestral stock from which the various breeds of domestic goats have been derived. In the north-east of Quetta, it is replaced by markhor (*Capra falconeri*) and is found in Turkestan, Afghanistan, Baluchistan and Kashmir (Fig. 60). The Circassian goat is said to be the descendant of the markhor. By far the most important is the bezoar goat (*Capra hircus aegagrus*), which ranges from Sind in the east through Iran and Asia Minor to Crete and the Cyclades in the west. In many parts of this area, it has disappeared.
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A B C D E
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Fig. 54. Zebu bulls painted on pottery, and bull figurines, Kulli Culture, from a site in Kolwa, in southern Baluchistan (After S. Piggot)
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From Iran it extends into Russian Turkestan and the Caucasus, and into the west of Asia Minor.
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In the late Pleistocene, the bezoar extended south into Lebanon, where its remains were found in an upper Palaeolithic context in the Antelias Cave, near Beirut. This goat is a true bezoar. In addition, the bezoar was recorded from the cave called Mugharat-el-Wad on Mount Carmel in Palestine. As the specimen came from a disturbed deposit, its age could not be ascertained; it may have been Palaeolithic or Mesolithic. If Palaeolithic, this find would extend the area of the wild bezoar as far south as the mountains of Palestine. In addition, it was found in the Natufian cave of El Khiam in Israel (Vaufrey, 1951).³
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³ Zeuner, F.E. *A History of Domesticated Animals*, p. 130
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The goat was the earliest ruminant to be domesticated. Long before 6700 B.C. the scimitar-horned bezoar goat had been domesticated, and most of the derived breeds lost the characteristic sub-angular and broad cross-section of the male horn. It may well have been first domesticated in Palestine, though Iran is an alternative. The domesticated goat existed in Iran about 6000 B.C. In the fourth millennium, goats with twisted horns appear, and gradually become dominant. This change may have coincided with the Chalcolithic stage. By Bronze Age times the twisted horn had become the fashion. The twisted-horn goats have descended from two stocks, one being the scimitar-horned Neolithic goat. The other, though twisted, is nearer the bezoar and thus betrays closer kinship with the original stock.⁴
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⁴ Zeuner, F.E. *A History of Domesticated Animals*, p. 140
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The Harappa toys contain representations of a goat. Two seals from Mohenjo-daro show a wild bezoar goat with enormous curled horns, and a bearded domestic male goat with side-spreading horns (Fig. 57).
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The Gaddi goat greatly resembles the ancestral wild goat. In the mountains, Gaddi goats were used as beasts of burden. They are still used in the Himalayan districts of India for carrying panniers of salt and foodgrains.
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Sheep (*Ovis orientalis vignei*). All varieties of domestic sheep have descended from three species of *Ovis* found wild in the mountainous regions of Asia and Europe. The earliest to be domesticated in south-west Asia was *Ovis orientalis vignei*, the urial, found wild from Tibet to Elburz mountains. Descendants of *Ovis musimon*, the mouflon, are found in Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia, Cyprus, Anatolia and northern Iran. *Ovis ammon*, the argali, is found in the mountainous regions of Soviet Central Asia. The argali is a very large sheep, with a shoulder height of up to 120 cm, and occurs farther east and north-east than the urial, ranging from Bokhara through the Altai Mountains and Tibet to northern China. According to Zeuner, it has certainly contributed to the domesticated stock of India and the Far East, but in connection with the origins of sheep-breeding it is of subordinate importance.
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*Ovis orientalis vignei*, which has many wild varieties in mountains from Afghanistan to Armenia, is probably the ancestor of domesticated sheep in India as well as in Arabia. The people of Anau in Soviet Turkestan domesticated a variety of *Ovis orientalis vignei*, and it is generally believed that all domesticated sheep have been derived by selective breeding and crossing from the varieties found in Turkestan. The inhabitants of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa had domesticated sheep with them. Toys showing a ram's head have been recovered from Mohenjo-daro (Fig. 57).
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Though sheep were most probably domesticated in the mountains of Iran, Turkestan and Baluchistan, we find that they came to the plains rather early in the history of civilization and served a useful purpose in the economy of the Mesopotamian and northern Indian civilizations. They provided milk, meat and clothing for the inhabitants of the cold north.
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In the mountain ranges of the Himalayas and in Tibet, breeds occur which betray urial descent, such as the Hunia. It is tall and strong and carries salt over the passes.
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Another Himalayan breed is the barwal. The rams, with their massive horns, the bases of which almost touch each other, suggest the presence of argali blood. They are used as fighting sheep. The so-called unicorn sheep of Nepal belong to this breed. The searing of the horn-buds with a hot iron causes the horns to grow upwards in a fused condition.
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In the hotter parts of India, breeds of sheep are kept which are closely related to those of western Asia and Africa. The dumba, which occurs from Turkestan to western India and Pakistan, is a fat-tailed breed (Fig. 59). Others belong to the long-legged and lop-eared groups. There is no archaeological evidence for their history.
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The complex picture presented by the history of domesticated sheep is summarized as follows by Zeuner. 'The sheep was domesticated with the aid of the dog before agriculture was fully developed. The sheepdog played a vital part in the domestication of ruminants. The original centre of domestication is the Aralo-Caspian steppe and Turkestan. From there, sheep-keeping spread early into Iran, and later into Mesopotamia and Baluchistan. The domesticated race of wild sheep was in the first instance the arkal, which belongs to the species of the urial. The five main breeds which had reached Mesopotamia by about 2000 B.C. were: (1) the screw-horned hair-sheep, (2) the screw-horned wool-sheep, (3) the zackelschaf, (4) the ammon's horn wool-sheep and (5) the ammon's horn fat-tailed wool-sheep. All these were of urial stock, so far as is known. In so far as sheep are kept in India, Tibet and other countries of the east and south Asia, they are of western derivation, and basically of urial stock. Argali blood has, however, been introduced repeatedly, and a few breeds are claimed to be of almost pure argali stock.
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'Before domestication began, fat had to be obtained from game animals. With the domestication of the sheep it became available in practically any quantity required. Sheep fat was in due course replaced by vegetable oils in the Neolithic, though for culinary purposes it continued in esteem among eastern peoples. Nevertheless, the numerous technological uses of fats almost certainly were greatly developed as a result of the domestication of the sheep.
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'The use of wool was probably discovered when the peculiar mode of moulting in large coherent patches was observed by the first domesticators. It would have been easy to make sheets of felt from such material, and felt-making has remained an important industry in many parts of central Asia, where it is even today associated with nomadic culture. Spinning and weaving were probably first practised with vegetable materials.
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'Woven cloth made of wool was not readily accepted in areas where good plant fibre, mainly flax, was available and where the climate was sufficiently mild. It, therefore, developed mainly in climates with a cold winter, and its subsequent spread to warmer zones was probably due to the development of finer qualities of wool.
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'It thus appears that the domestication of the sheep, apart from ensuring a permanent meat supply, also improved greatly the supply of raw materials, of skins, hair, fat and bones. All these became, in due course, available from other sources, namely other domesticated ruminants. But the production of wool has almost entirely remained a monopoly of the sheep'.⁵
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⁵ Zeuner, F.E. *A History of Domesticated Animals*, pp. 197, 198
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Goat and Sheep. 'The chief differences between the goat and the sheep are in their ecological requirements and in the raw materials they supply. The sheep is essentially a grass-feeder, preferring (where available) the protection of open woods. The goat is a browser, preferring foliage of shrubs to grass. In spite of this all goats are well adapted to life beyond the tree-line, both in high mountains and in arid zones, where small shrubs are available in abundance. The goat is probably content with even sparser food than the oriental breeds of sheep. In particular it eats aromatic herbs despised by other ruminants; hence it can penetrate farther into the desert. Apart from the supply of meat, which both species provide, the sheep scores in respect of wool and fat and in the quality of its meat whilst the goat furnishes more milk. It is possible that the use of milk and its derivatives was first established with the goat, before the cattle were domesticated.
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'In the course of time, however, the sheep got the upper hand over the goat, especially in temperate countries, presumably because its meat is tastier and less tough and because it produces both fat and wool. Moreover, where cattle are kept without difficulty, the need of keeping goats as milch animals does not arise. Yet, where pasture is scarce, where thorny scrub dominates over grass, where it is difficult on account of lack of good food and water to keep cattle, the goat becomes an important economic factor, for it is able to live under conditions which do not suit sheep, and it provides milk in quantities which are large compared with the size of the animal.
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Fig. 55. A Brahmani bull, Mughal, eighteenth century (Courtesy: National Museum, New Delhi)
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Fig. 56. The wild goat (Capra hircus) is still found in the barren hills of Baluchistan and western Sind. It is the chief ancestral stock from which the various breeds of domestic goat have been derived
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Fig. 57. Domestication of sheep and goats. Toys and seals from Mohen-jo-daro: *top*, a ram; *middle, left*, a wild goat (*Capra hircus*) *middle, right*, a domesticated goat; *bottom*, a domesticated goat (After Mackay and Vats)
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Fig. 58. The nayan (Ovis amon hodgsoni), the largest wild sheep with curled horns, is found in northern Ladakh, Spiti, Sikkim, Kumaon, Nepal and Tibet. The legend is that it eats snakes. Mughal, early eighteenth century (Courtesy : Salar Jung Museum, Hyderabad)
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[Figure: Fig. 59. Dumba, a breed of sheep with a fat tail. Mughal, early eighteenth century (Courtesy: Prince of Wales Museum of Western India, Bombay)]
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Fig. 60. Markhor (Capra falconeri), a wild goat with horns spirally twisted like a cork-screw, is found in Afghanistan and from Hazara to the Pir Panjal mountain range in Kashmir. Mughal, seventeenth century (Courtesy : Salar Jung Museum, Hyderabad)
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Hence the goat has been kept by preference in the mountainous districts and the dry steppes all over the world.
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'As a producer of raw materials for technical processes, the goat is less important than the sheep. Its skin has been used since time immemorial for water-containers, but it does not supply fat and its hair is usually coarse, wool in the strict sense of the word being rare. Therefore, though goat's hair is used, and no doubt has always been used, where available, the sheep became the most important producer of spinning material. One wonders why the goat has not been completely replaced by the sheep. The reason appears to be that as a browser it prefers environments different from those liked by sheep. It can thrive on desert scrub and it yields more milk'.
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Ass (*Equus asinus asinus*). The true asses are of purely African origin. They are derived from North African wild race, now extinct. According to Zeuner, the ass was first domesticated in the Valley of the Nile or in Libya.
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The bones of the ass have been recovered from Rana Ghundai in Baluchistan. The remains of the ass have also been reported from Harappa, Kalibangan (Rajasthan), and Rangpur (Gujarat), Period III (1000-800 B.C.). It is, however, not certain that these bones are not of half-asses, or hemiones.
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For patient hard work, no animal can match the donkey. In construction work and in the digging of canals, loads are carried by donkeys. After the day's hard work, they are just let loose to eat whatever they can find. However, the donkey's greatest contribution to animal husbandry is as progenitor of the mule. The hybrid between the male ass and the female horse is the mule, a sure-footed animal, so useful in carrying loads on narrow mountain paths.
References
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Lydekker, R. *Wild Life of the World*, London, 1916 Piggott, S. *Prehistoric India*, London, 1950 Sauer, C.O. *Agricultural Origins and Dispersals—the Domestication of Animals and Food Stuffs*, Boston, 1969 Stein, A. *An Archaeological Tour in Wazirastan and North Baluchistan*, London, 1929