A History of Agriculture in India v1.c23.s3: West Bengal
A History of Agriculture in India v1.c23.s3
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West Bengal
v1.c23.s3.1
Pandu Rajar Dhibi. A fairly extensive, early rice-growing, riverain culture, with maritime contacts, once existed in West Bengal. Pandu Rajar Dhibi is one of the largest settlements in West Bengal. As the name connotes, it is reputed to be the home of King Pandu.
v1.c23.s3.2
Pandu Rajar Dhibi is set in beautiful surroundings. Situated on the banks of the Ajay, it has banana groves, occasional tall coconut and sal trees, their greenery contrasting with the red, lateritic, undulating plain.
v1.c23.s3.3
At Pandu Rajar Dhibi we see a gradual growth of a Chalcolithic culture.
v1.c23.s3.4
In Period I, besides hand-made, thick grey ware, with impressions of paddy-husk, were found a wheel-turned thin ware of plain and sandy fabric, a pale-red ware and black-and-red ware.
v1.c23.s3.5
Rice, fish and meat of nilgai, deer and pig were the staple diet of the inhabitants from the very beginning of the settlement.
v1.c23.s3.6
Pandu Rajar Dhibi is not a solitary agricultural village of the Chalcolithic period in West Bengal. Small excavations at Mahisdal, Nanur, Haraipur, District Birbhum, and Tulsipur, District Bankura, have yielded similar evidence.
v1.c23.s3.7
The objects from these small excavations not only confirm the evidence from Pandu Rajar Dhibi, with regard to the nature of the houses, pottery, and burial practices in Period I, but complement it in several ways. Among the microliths are lunates and short blades, a flat copper celt with convex cutting edge, tetrahedral stone weights, and a large quantity of charred rice. The impressions of paddy husks from Pandu Rajar Dhibi were identified by the Economic Botanist to the West Bengal Government as those of cultivated paddy, Oryza sativa.³
v1.c23.s3.8
³ Sankalia, H.D. *The Prehistory and Protohistory of India and Pakistan*, pp. 309 to 312