Unit 3 Harappan Civilisation and Other Chalcolithic Cultures

Introductory UNIT 3 HARAPPAN CIVILISATION AND OTHER CHALCOLITHIC CULTURES Structure 3.0 Introduction 3.1 The Background 3.2 The Harappan Culture 3.3 Urbanism 3.4 State Structure 3.5 Social Structure 3.6 End of the Harappan Civilization 3.7 Other Chalcolithic Cultures 3.8 Summary 3.9 Glossary 3.10 Exercises 3.11 Suggested Readings 3.0 INTRODUCTION The purpose of this Unit is to investigate more complex social structures than those covered in the previous Unit. This complexity arises due to the emergence of the state in the 3rd millennium BC. This early state is an inchoate one, incorporating many elements of tribal societies. This Bronze Age state is also quite different from the states of later periods, in no small measure due to the lack of commoditisation and coined money in this period. That this period also witnessed the first experiments in urbanism in the subcontinent adds to its complexity. These developments were basically confined to the North-western parts of the subcontinent and one must be aware that other socio-political structures, like band, tribal or chiefship level societies, may have existed contemporaneously in this and other areas. So far, we have seen incipient stages of social development, encompassing the band and tribal levels. In this Unit, we will discuss the other two stages of development, namely chiefdom (or chiefship) and state. Structurally, the chiefdom resembles the tribal level with the beginnings of social stratification, a political office and redistributive economy. On the other hand, there is a marked difference between tribal or chiefdom and state societies. Essentially, the chief enjoys ritual power and not political or economic control over people. In the case of a state, on the other hand, the ruler has actual control over resources and hence political authority. In a state, kinship no longer plays a determining role in social and economic transactions. This paves the way for enforcing decisions, rules and so forth over social entities larger than a kin group. In fact, there is marked social stratification, the beginnings of class structure, an institutionalized political office and occupational differentiation. These elements, indicative of increasing complexity, occur relatively late in human history, that is, in the 3rd millennium BC. At the same time, we need to be aware that some elements of tribal societies would continue into Bronze Age state societies. In this Unit, we will be referring to Bronze Age and chalcolithic societies. The Bronze Age, a term used by V. Gordon Childe, should be seen not merely as a technological stage, but as one marked by a particular social form, that takes shape 26 within an urban context and has features of a state society, while the term chalcolithic Harappan Civilisation and Other Chalcolithic would refer to food producing societies at the tribal level of social organization. Cultures While stone was used far more than metal for the major cutting tools in the chalcolithic, the Bronze Age is noted for a far more regular use of copper/bronze tools. Given that there are limitations to the forms possible in stone, the chalcolithic indicates a more basic toolkit (where chalcolithic metal objects largely imitated stone tool types), unlike the Bronze Age where a greater diversity in shapes and sizes of metal tools come into use. Moreover there are several other implications involved in bronze metallurgy. In contrast to stone, copper is not found commonly and even more rare is tin, the major alloying material used for making bronze. This would have necessitated regular long-distance trade networks, in turn requiring certain institutional mechanisms. 3.1 THE BACKGROUND The Greater Indus Valley (Baluchistan, Sind, the Punjab and parts of Rajasthan) is the backdrop of cultural developments in the subcontinent until the 2nd millennium BC. We have already seen early developments in this region in the previous Unit, more specifically at the site of Mehrgarh, the Bolan Valley. There is continuous occupation at the site from neolithic to chalcolithic, with the beginning of the settlement going back to c.7000 BC. The chalcolithic is roughly dated from 4000 BC to 2200 BC but Mehrgarh has no Harappan occupation. The period, roughly from 3300-2600 BC, is marked by what are called Early Harappan or Early Indus cultures, the Amri-Nal, Kot Diji, Sothi-Siswal and Damb Saddat cultures. Essentially differentiated on the basis of ceramics, there is some spatial overlap between these cultures (See Figure 1). What is relevant is that most of the areas of the Greater Indus Valley are settled in this period. Wheat, barely, cattle, sheep and goat formed the major subsistence base. House building methods also show some continuity from this period in to the Mature Harappan period ( c.2600-1900 BC). Archaeologists like M.R. Mughal have pointed out similarities between the Early and Mature Harappan in ceramic shapes and designs, artifacts like terracotta toy-cart frames and wheels, cakes and cones. The continuing elements have led archaeologists like B. Allchin, R. Allchin and J.M. Kenoyer to consider the Early Harappan as a stage of incipient urbanism, one that is formative in the development of the Harappan civilization. On the other hand, G.L. Possehl, J. Shaffer and D.L. Lichtenstein consider the Early Harappan to be pre-urban leading to a short (100-150 years) transitional period, culminating in the Harappan civilization. S. Ratnagar, however, points out the discontinuities. For one, only about one fifth of the Early Harappan / Early Indus Settlements continue to be occupied in the Harappan period. Moreover one-fifth of the Early Harappan / Early Indus settlements continue to be occupied in the Harappan period. Moreover, the size range of Harappan sites contrasts with that for the earlier cultures: in the case of the Harappan, site sizes range from less than 1 ha to 125 ha (some considering the latter figure to be more than 200 ha). For the earlier period, the range is from less than 1 ha to 30 ha. She also sees the difference between the two cultures in terms of social organization, where large fortified Early Indus settlements like Rahman Dheri, in Dera Ismail Khan District in the western plains of the Indus, may have been the locus of a chiefship. In contrast, the Harappan is seen in terms of an early state, which will be discussed below: 27 Introductory 3.2 THE HARAPPAN CULTURE The Harappan culture (also termed as the Indus Valley Civilization and the Mature Harappan) covers a large geographic area, comprising of Sind, the Makran, the Punjab, Northern Rajasthan, Kutch and parts of Kathiawad with some outlying sites such as Shortughai in northeast Afghanistan and Manda in Jammu & Kashmir (See Figure 2). The Harappan culture is a proto-historic culture, where writing (limited to seals and other inscribed material) was known but there are no lengthy texts. Thus, for most interpretation of society and economy, we are dependent on the material record. The question is, what in the material record would enable us to recognise a Harappan site? Sites are classified as Harappan on the basis of the recovery of the following types of artifacts. Thick red pottery decorated with black paintings, square steatite seals with a boss, chert cubical weights adhering to a certain standard, burnt bricks with dimensions of a particular ratio (4:2:1), terracotta toy-cart frames and wheels, triangular terracotta cakes, steatite micro-beads, long cylindrical carnelian beads, etched carnelian beads with particular treatment of the surface and designs, long chert blades and so on. It is not the presence of one or two of these artefact-types, but the co-occurrence of a number of them, that comprises an archaeological assemblage, representing most spheres of human activity. Moreover, these artefact- types should come from a limited, defined and continuous geographical area and period of time and would comprise an archaeological culture. For example, etched carnelian beads with different designs can be found in the Iron Age (from 1000 BC) in Karnataka. That does not mean that those sites are Harappan. The Karnataka sites would belong to a different archaeological culture. Similarly, just finding a single artefact-type, like long chert blades, in a site belonging to the same period will not qualify the site to be called Harappan. To take a concrete example, beads of typical Harappan type found carefully kept in a pot in a chalcolithic site in Madhya Pradesh, Kayatha, would not mean that the site was Harappan. The entire material assemblage, apart form the beads, was chalcolithic in nature. Thus, the find of those beads would probably represent a hard, secreted away, indicating some interaction with the Harappan society. Moreover, finding an artefact with some vague resemblance to a Harappan artefact in shape or material in a distance area like eastern India would not mean the extension of the Harappan culture to that region. This is because there should be some rigour in recognizing artefact-types. Artefact-types should comprise of multiple attributes (and not just a single one) such as shape, size, material, colour, context and so forth. Thus, in the Harappan case, we find the distribution of a somewhat uniform material assemblage over a large geographic area and period of time. In fact, early archaeologists, such as Stuart Piggott, considered Harappan products as standardized and uniform. However, with more excavations and research, regional variations have been delineated. Yet, one cannot deny that certain artefact-types do have a wide distribution. We need to go into the implications of such a distribution. There is a strong likelihood that we may be dealing with a state(s) in the Harappan period, a discussion that we will go into later in this Unit.

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