A History of Agriculture in India v1.c25.s2: Archaeological Remains of the Aryans

A History of Agriculture in India v1.c25.s2

Language: English

Archaeological Remains of the Aryans

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Gandhara Grave Culture. The archaeological evidence of the

¹Max Müller, *Chips from a German Workshop*, Vol. I, p. 27 arrival of the Aryans in the North-West Frontier Province, according to Thapar, is available in the Gandhara Grave Culture, covering Periods I-III, and the occurrence of objects of copper or bronze, viz. copper celts, swords, shaft-hole axes, and spiral-headed pins, which have a wide distribution in time and space (Heine Geldern, 1936, 1937, 1956; Piggott, 1950; Gordon, 1958; Allchin, 1968).

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The Gandhara Grave Culture, was brought to light by the excavations at Buthara II, Katslai I and Loebanr I Butkara, Barama, Timargarh and Balambat in Swat by Dani. It is characterized by: (a) three distinct types of burial practices (inflexed articulated inhumation, cremation in urns and fractional and multiple), corresponding to three periods of occupation I, II and III; (b) two classes of pottery (red ware and grey ware); (c) the use of copper-bronze during Periods I and II and of iron during Period III; and (d) the knowledge of horse-breeding. On the basis of a comparative study and ¹⁴C determinations, Period I is dated to sixteenth-thirteenth century B.C., Period II to twelfth-tenth century B.C. and Period III to ninth-sixth century B.C. The settlement pattern of this culture indicates the location of the habitation sites along the slopes extending to the river, permitting the use of river for terrace cultivation. Higher slopes would no doubt have been used for cattle-grazing.

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A detailed study of the skeletal material (Bernhard, 1967) obtained from the graves indicates the presence of two dominant groups of foreign peoples in the graves: *Eurydolichomorph* or Proto-Europoid in Period I and *Leptodolichomorph* or the Mediterranean in Period III, ‘closely connected the southern migration of foreign people into the Pakistan-India sub-continent which began in the second millennium B.C. and continued in the first’. On the basis of this evidence, the excavator felt that these migrations represented two waves of invasions of the plain grey ware-using people, the first associated with copper or bronze in about the middle of the second millennium B.C. and the second with iron in the beginning of the first. On circumstantial evidence, the people associated with these migrations are identified with the Aryans, the two waves being further explained by the use of the words *ayas* (generally taken to be copper) in the Rig-Vedic literature, and *tamra-ayas* (copper) and *krishna-ayas* (iron) in the later Vedic.²

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² Thapar, B.K. *The Archaeological Remains of the Aryans in North-Western India*, I.C.H.R.

Cites (1)

Ṛgvedasaṃhitā — Sanskrit