Indian Journal of Archaeology

Archaeological Investigations in the Suktel River, District-Bolangir and Subarnapur, Odisha: A Preliminary Report

Sakir Hussain [email protected] P.G. Department of History, Sambalpur University, Odisha

Introduction

In Eastern the Early Historic settlements are fairly widely distributed and scattered across the region in varied environmental settings1. The vast mineral resources of the highland areas, the alluvial tracts of the Gangetic and the Mahanadi deltas which favoured agricultural intensification and expansion; the long coastal line that accommodated maritime trade as well as contemporary socio-cultural forces must have played catalytic roles in the emergence of several urban centres in this part of the subcontinent. , Tamluk, Mangalkot and in West , and Sisupalgarh, Jaugarh, Radhanagar, Manikpatana, Kharligarh and Narla Asurgarh in Odisha are few notable Early Historic urban centers of this region frequently referred to in the literature2. The river Mahanadi with its major and minor tributaries and the valleys and plateaus created by them provided an atmosphere for the growth of settlements in different period of time. The physiographic setting and availability of resources of the region3 suggested that, this geographical area had all the ability to fulfill the requirements of the nomadic hunter-gatherers and sedentary communities of the Quaternary era. Particularly the Mahanadi valley was surveyed since last three decades and brought to light cultural succession right from the Paleolithic to the Early Historic period in the region4. In this part of Odisha, both fortified and non-fortified types of Early Historic settlements have been brought to light in the Mahanadi and its various major and minor tributaries. One of such fortified site i.e. Manamunda on the confluence of the river Mahanadi and the Tel was subjected to several seasons’ excavations by Sambalpur University5. The excavations revealed extensive settlement remains, the beginning of which has seen ascribed by the excavators to a time between the fourth and third centuries BC. The findings included structures of brick and stone, plain black-and-red ware and associated ceramic industries, iron and copper objects, beads of semi-precious stones and silver punch-marked coin. Following the excavation at Manamunda few attempts were made by scholars to understand the extension of culture found at Manamunda, which resulted in the discovery of a number of proto-historic and early historic sites in the middle Mahanadi valley and its tributaries6. The present paper is also based on the exploration conducted on the Suktel river by the author in March-April 2016, with a view to understand the extension of the culture represented at Manamunda 1203 | P a g e Visit us: www.ijarch.org

Archaeological Investigations in the Suktel River, District-Bolangir and Subarnapur, Odisha: A Preliminary Report and which resulted in the discovery of a number of settlement sites belonging to Early Historic and Historic period (Fig. 1).

Area and its Environmental Setting The general topography of the area is represented by undulating and rough badlands, narrow alluvial tract along the river Suktel and small to medium sized hills, the area bounded on North by the Bargarh uplands, on the South by the south western hills system, on the west by lofty hills ranges of the Gandhamardan and on the east by the river Mahanadi and the Tel. The area is highly fertile and supports rice, wheat, gram, peas, mustard and other crops. Patches of open jungles nearby also provide ample pasture for the domestic animals of the local farmers. In spite of regular human interference, the forest clad hilly tracts of the region still possess a rich variety of subsistence-related flora and wild fauna. The climate of the area is characterized by hot dry summers and well- distributed rain in the southwest monsoon. The average annual rainfall ranges between1400 and 1500 mm. The climate of the area mostly supports tropical moist deciduous, riverine and tropical dry deciduous types of natural vegetation.

Fig.1: Map Showing Explored Sites in the Suktel River along the Fortified Early Historic sites in the Mahanadi and the Tel rivers 1204 | P a g e Visit us: www.ijarch.org

Indian Journal of Archaeology

Methodology During the exploration the individual sites which occur in the form of mound in the region are measured and their exact locations and state of preservations were recorded. Since, the material remains from each of the sites were collected from the surface, particular care was taken to make the sample representatives. The representative samples, thus collected from explored sites were subsequently put to close examinations. The potteries were classified on the basis of not only fabric but data with regard to firing conditions, slips, decorations and shapes have also been taken into consideration. As in the middle Mahanadi valley region already the culture sequence is well established on the basis of the stratigraphic occurrence of different ceramics and other material remains, besides a good number of radiocarbon dates. It is very helpful to us for comparison of the ceramics and other material remains found during the exploration and to give the first hand culture sequence of these sites on the basis of the surface remains. A detailed description on sites and material remain is discussed below.

The Tel-Mahanadi region is investigated by several scholars to understand the early historic fort horizon, incipient urbanization, and state formation system which was already reported in the Ganga plain and Odisha’s Coastal region. The contexts and their finds in the highland region of Odisha show characteristic signs of urbanization. These include a large settlement area, elaborate fortifications, use of baked brick architecture, coinage, seals with script, imported luxury ware and with it, evidence for trade, besides prevalence of Buddhism which at this time are related to urban and mercantile settlements. Previously, this area was surveyed by S. Gartia7 as a part of his M. Phil research work and he reported three ancient pottery using settlement sites i.e. Sakma, Sankarbhunji and Khari. We revisited these reported sites and the rest of sites mentioned below are reporting for the first time (Table-1).

1205 | P a g e Visit us: www.ijarch.org

Archaeological Investigations in the Suktel River, District-Bolangir and Subarnapur, Odisha: A Preliminary Report

Table 1: List of Explored sties in the river Suktel.

Sl. Site Name/ Latitudes/ River/Bank Findings Remarks No District Longitudes Salipali/ Suktel/ 200 48/ 36.30// N RW, RSW, BSW and Pottery 1 Historic Bolangir Right Bank 830 00/ 49.04// E disc RW, RSW, BSW, Pottery Khursel/ Suktel/ 200 50’ 37. 78’ N disc, Iron Slag and 2 Historic Bolangir Left Bank 830 10’ 49. 49’ E Fragments of Animal Terracotta Figurine 200 50’ 09. 63” Rengali/ Suktel/ 3 N RW, RSW, BSW Historic Bolangir Left Bank 830 10’ 08. 73”E BadTelenpali/ Suktel/ 200 50’. 63” N 4 RW, RSW Historic Bolangir Left Bank 830 19’ 05.51” E

Candpuri/ Suktel/ 830 47’ 18.27” N 5 RW, RSW, BSW and BRW Early Historic Bolangir Right Bank 830 22’ 42.16” E RW, RSW, BSW, glass Sakama / Suktel/ 20°49'8.83"N bangle, Iron and glass Slag 6 Historic Bolangir Left Bank 83°29'55.75"E and Fragments of Animal Terracotta Figurine Sankarbhunji/ Suktel/ 20°48'15.58"N 7 RW, RSW, BW Historic Bolangir Right Bank 83°30'7.08"E

Durgapali/ Suktel/ 20º48' 45.96'' N 8 RW, RSW Historic Bolangir Right Bank 83º31'42.77'' E

Pipirda/ Suktel/ 20º49'59.09'' N 9 RW, RSW, BSW and BRW Early Historic Bolangir Right Bank 83º32'37.33'' E Kumunde// Suktel/ 20º51'06.09'' N 10 RW, RSW Historic Bolangir Left Bank 83º34'06.54'' E Kulthipali/ Suktel/ 20º49'57.45'' N 11 RW, RSW Historic Bolangir Right Bank 83º35'45.03'' E Lokapara/ Suktel/ 20° 49' 40" N RW, RSW, BSW, BRW and 12 Early Historic Bolangir Right Bank 83° 36' 42" E Punch-marked coins Tentuliakanta/ Suktel/ 20º49'59.09'' N 13 RW, RSW, BSW Historic Bolangir Right Bank 83º32'37.33'' E Pua/ Suktel/ 20º48'42.29'' N 14 RW, RSW Historic Subarnpur Right Bank 83º38'26.17'' E Rambhasindol/ Suktel/ 20º46'47.79'' N 15 RW, RSW, BSW Historic Subarnpur Right Bank 83º40'45.92'' E

1206 | P a g e Visit us: www.ijarch.org

Indian Journal of Archaeology

Khari/ Suktel/ 20°46'24.64"N RW, RSW, BRW, pottery 16 Early Historic Subarnpur Left Bank 83°43'3.73"E disc and Iron Slag Arhakata/ Suktel/ 20º46'41.13'' N 17 RW, RSW and BRW Early Historic Subarnpur Right Bank 83º41'32.47'' E

Findings Of seventeen explored sites, only five are early historic whereas the rest are historic in nature. As in the middle river Mahanadi black-and-red ware is mostly found with the Chalcolithic, Iron Age and subsequently in the Early Historic phase with some changes in the typology and manufacturing technology. But during the course of our exploration we could not found such specimen in sites of the river Suktel. Few pieces of BRW sherds are found from some sites and their shapes, fabric and surface treatment shows that they are mostly inferior quality in compare to the BRW pottery of Manamunda and other Early Historic sites of Mahanadi valley. At almost all the sites the Red ware is prolific, some are of dull red, whereas others show colours varied from dark red to brownish red. These potteries were prepared on fast turned wheel as well as slow moving wheel. These show both ill and well fired nature. The decorated pattern usually constitute horizontal band on the neck, vertical line, finger-tip decoration, clay trip decoration, zigzag line, incision and triangle design. The most dominated ware is Red Slipped Ware (RSW) which is found from all the sites in good quantity. Both thin and thick slips of deep red and brownish to yellowish red colour are applied. The important shapes are fragments of jar with grooved rim, bowl with an incurved beaded rim and the bowl with convex sides and thick incurved rim, miniature pots etc. Few vessels are decorated with incised and appliqué design before application of the slip. Among the other important remains mention may be made of glass bangle, glass slag, Iron Slag, Pottery disc, Terracotta figurine, reed impressed burnt clay lamps. From Lokapada the police confiscated the bulk of 800 coins around 1990, but about 1⁄3 of them are said to have been melted down on their discovery. This hoard has not been studied, but at least a part of them are certainly Mauryan in date. Few of these coins are now preserved in the State Museum, Bhubaneswar and Prof. N.K. Sahu Museum, Sambalpur University.

Discussion Since the initial archaeological investigations conducted at Sisupalgarh8 by B.B. Lal in the late forties of the last century and at Jaugarh9 by Beglar and D. Mitra, a large number of early habitation sites associated with the cultural remains of the early historic period have been brought to light from diverse physiographic regions of Odisha10. In compare to the prehistoric and protohistoric settlements, sites belonging to the Early Historic period are fairly widespread in the present study area. Excavations and explorations carried out during last two decades in this region brought to light both fortified and non-fortified types of Early Historic settlements11. Material remains from the

1207 | P a g e Visit us: www.ijarch.org

Archaeological Investigations in the Suktel River, District-Bolangir and Subarnapur, Odisha: A Preliminary Report excavated sites of Badmal12, Kumesingha13, Kurumpadar14, Manamunda15 and Nuagarh16 established the fact that Iron Age villages were gradually developed into the full fledge urban and semi-urban centres in the middle Mahanadi valley region during the early historic period with new trait elements. The evidence for bead manufacturing activities at Badmal17, the presence of a silver plated copper punch marked coin18 and evidence of large scale glass manufacturing activities19 at Kurumpadar and evidences of Iron smelting activities at different sites clearly suggested that there were several industrial centres of different craft specialisation and of different levels in the middle Mahanadi valley. The occurrence of other craft specialisations viz. ceramic industries, manufacturing of Iron and copper implements, precious and semi-precious stone beads, presence of punch-marked coins and inter as well as intra-regional trade network witnessed the existence of the complex urbanised early historic settlements in this part of India. The present exploration on the river Suktel also confirms the fact that due to the population pressure, different economic factors and increased social complexity, settlements during late Iron Age- Early Historic periods expanded to the tributaries of the Mahanadi. Subsequently occurrence of fortified settlements in the region suggests that it was not only the expansion of settlements but also the emergence of urbanisation with its concomitant trait elements. The forgoing brief accounts of the archaeological investigations in the river Suktel provide valuable insights into the distribution of early historic settlements and the complex urbanism prevalent in the region. Instead of all these works our knowledge about the process of urbanisation and city and state formation system of this region is limited because most of the studies are based on the surface collections as well as restricted vertical excavations and also many sites are lost forever because of the extensive modern agricultural activity and due to the repeated floods in the Mahanadi and its tributaries. It is also observed that this region was under continuous human occupation without any major abandonment from the Palaeolithic to the Early Medieval period. But considerable amount of systematic work with multidisciplinary approaches are required before going into any preliminary observation about the history and environment of human settlement and their subsistence pattern during the Early Historic period in Western part Odisha.

References

1. Yule, P. 2006. Early Historic Sites in Orissa, New Delhi: Pragun Publication. 2. Behera, K.S. 1994. Maritime Activities of Orissa, in Maritime Heritage of India (K.S. Behera ed.), New Delhi: Aryan Books International, pp. 162-171.; Allchin, F.R. 1995. The Archaeology of Early Historic South Asia: the emergence of cities and states, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Mishra, B. 2008-09. Early Historic Archaeology of the Tel River Valley, Journal of Bengal Art, Vol-13 and14, pp. 191-228. 3. Geology And Mineral Resources of Odisha, Geological Survey of India, No. 30, Part III. 4. Basa, K.K. and Mohanty, P. (eds.) 2000. Archaeology of Orissa, Delhi: Pratibha Prakashan; Behera, P.K. 2006. Investigations into the Mesolithic and Post-Mesolithic settlements in the middle Mahanadi valley, Odisha, in Art 1208 | P a g e Visit us: www.ijarch.org

Indian Journal of Archaeology

and Archaeology of Odisha: Recent Perspectives, (S. Pradhan ed.), Delhi: Aryan International pp. 1-62; Behera, P.K. 2013. New Light on the Neolithic and Chalcolithic Evidences from the Middle Mahanadi Valley, Orissa, in Neolithic Chalcolithic Cultures of Eastern India, (K.N. Dikshit ed.), New Delhi: The Indian Archaeological Society, pp. 184-208. 5. Behera, S.C. 1982. Manamunda, in Interim Excavation Reports, (S.C. Behera ed.), Sambalpur University, pp. 16-22. 6. Behera, P.K. 2000-01. Excavations at Khameswaripali - A Protohistoric Settlement in the Middle Mahanadi Valley, Odisha: A Preliminary Report, Pragdhara 11, pp. 13-34. 7. Gadtia, S. 2000. A Study of Archaeological Remains in the Lower Ong and the Lower Suktel Valley, Orissa, Unpublished M.Phil. Dissertation, Sambalpur University. 8. Lal, B.B. 1949. Sisupalgarh 1948: An Early Historical fort in Eastern India, Ancient India 5, pp. 62-105. 9. Beglar, J.D. 1882. Report of Tours in the South-Eastern Provinces in 1874-75 and 1875-76 (Calcutta), Reprinted Varanasi (ASI Reports "Cunningham Series" vol. 13); I.A.R. 1956-57, pp. 30-31. 10. Patra, B. 2007. Early Historic Urban Centers of Western Odisha: An Archaeological Study, Man and Environment XXXII (2), pp. 27-36. 11. Behera, P.K. and Chattopadhyaya, P.K. 2013. Iron Age – Early historic period in Eastern India. A study in material culture and technology: evidence from the site of Badmal-Asurgarh, District Sambalpur, Odisha, India, in The World of Iron, (Jane Humphris and Thilo Rehren eds.), London: Arche type publications Ltd, pp. 125-34; Behera, P.K., S. Hussain and G.L. Badam 2015. Taraporegarh: An Iron Age-Early Historic Circular Fort in the Middle Mahanadi Valley, Odisha, Puratattva, Vol-45, pp. 178-196; Tripathy, B. 2002. Archaeology of Boudh District, Orissa With Special Reference to the Early Historic Settlement Pattern, Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, Deccan College Deemed University, Pune; Sahoo, D. 2013. Archaeology before history around Kardi, District Boudh, Central Orissa, Search 1, pp. 86-103 12. Behera, P.K. 2013. Op. Cit. 13. Behera, P.K. 2002-03. Excavations at Kumersingha and Kurumpadar - the Iron Age Settlements in the Middle Mahanadi Valley, Odisha: Results of the First Season's Work, Pragdhara 13, pp. 87-103. 14. Ibid. 15. Behera, S.C. 1982. Op. Cit. 16. Pradhan, S. 2006. Excavation at Nurgarh-Asurgarh: A preliminary report, in Art and Archaeology of Odisha: Recent Perspectives, ed. S. Pradhan, pp. 63-78. Delhi: Aryan International. 17. Behera, P.K. 2013. Op. Cit. 18. Behera, P.K. and S. Khamari 1998-99. A Note on the Discovery of Silver Punch Marked Coin from Excavation at Kurumpadar, District Boudh (Orissa), Bharati 25(1-2), pp. 205-10. 19. Singh, R.N. and P. K. Behera 2001-02. A Note on the Scientific Examination of Glass objects from Kurumpadar, District Boudh, Orissa, Pragdhara 12, pp. 173-76.

1209 | P a g e Visit us: www.ijarch.org