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Crafts and Technologies of the Chalcolithic People of South Asia: an Overview

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Crafts and Technologies of the Chalcolithic People of South Asia: an Overview Indian Journal of History of Science, 50.1 (2015) 42-54 DOI: 10.16943/ijhs/2015/v50i1/48111 Crafts and Technologies of the Chalcolithic People of South Asia: An Overview Vasant Shinde and Shweta Sinha Deshpande* (Received 15 January 2015) Abstract The Chalcolithic or the Early Farming community flourished from 7000 BC to first millennium BC all over South Asia due to many factors, including climate change and population pressure. A large number of sites discovered and selected ones excavated have thrown flood of light on various aspects of their lifestyle, including crafts and technological advances made by these people. Most of the technologies were innovated due to sheer necessities. This paper discusses the evidence from excavated sites a variety of pyro and non-pyro technologies the Chalcolithic people introduced and used over such a long period. Key words: Ahar culture, Chalcolithic, Chalcolithic technology, Deccan, Jorwe culture, Kayatha culture, Northwest India, South Asia. 1. INTRODUCTION steady growth and gradual induction of complex Technology forms the most important technologies from time to time. The rate of aspect of any culture, as it is the gauge for technological change that took place until the assessing economic and social developments introduction of farming (the period of the Early within human society during its various phases of Farming communities is usually referred to as history. It is the systematic study of techniques either Neolithic in some regions or Chalcolithic (craft) for making and doing things; and is in other) was slow and spread over a long period concerned with the fabrication and use of artefacts. of time and was in response to only the most basic It has been defined as the application of scientific human needs; the search for food and shelter. The knowledge to the practical aims of human life or dates for the beginning of Early Farming can also be described as the change and communities differ from region to region. The manipulation of the human environment and thus Levant region, one of the most fertile regions of is a social phenomenon that cannot be the world in West Asia is evidently considered to disassociated from the society in which it exists. have witnessed the gradual process from Hunting- It has been suggested that ‘necessity is the mother Gathering to incipient agriculture sometime of all inventions’ and to some extent this has been towards the end of Pleistocene period and the projected through the various phases of history. beginning of the Holocene period around 12000 The introduction of technological aspects to 15000 years ago. The various technologies that can be seen right from the introduction of a stone were developed there began to spread in all tool in the Lower Palaeolithic times around three directions within the neighbouring and far off million years ago and since then there has been a regions and are believed to have come to the north- * Department of Archaeology, Deccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute, Deemed University, Pune, India. Email: [email protected] CRAFTS AND TECHNOLOGIES OF THE CHALCOLITHIC PEOPLE OF SOUTH ASIA 43 western part of the subcontinent through the Bolan was witnessed in parts of western India, southeast pass around 7000 BC. Rajasthan in the Banas River basin and the Mid- In the context of South Asia, till the Ganga regions. In the rest of India the development beginning of the twentieth century when the of village-based culture started in the later part of systematic research on Protohistoric cultures the Mesolithic phase and continued into the began, most historians were of the opinion that Neolithic and Chalcolithic between 3500 and 1000 settled life began in the Early Historic period BC. The declined phase of the Chalcolithic has around the 6th or 5th century BC with the period been properly studied at the site of Inamgaon in between the Stone Age and the Early Historic the Bhima basin of the lower Deccan region. Of period considered to be a “Dark Age”. However, the early farming communities that came into the discovery of the Harappan Civilization in the existence in different parts of South Asia, the 1920’s and Chalcolithic in the 1950’s pushed back Chalcolithic phases in Central India, the Deccan the antiquity of settled life in the sub-continent and the South India have been systematically by two thousand years at one stroke. This is studied, thanks to the pioneering work by Deccan considered to be the greatest archaeological College under the leadership of H.D. Sankalia. discovery in South Asia of the twentieth century. Unfortunately, the eastern and north-eastern parts The development and spread of agriculture and of the country have not been subjected to pastoralism in South Asia are complex phenomena systematic archaeological research and therefore that have taken place over the course of more than very little is known about these regions. 9000 years with the technological breakthroughs The large numbers of Chalcolithic cultures in pottery, metalworking, bead manufacturing, identified in the subcontinent have been classified monumental architecture, etc. into ten regional traditions: i. Baluchistan and adjoining regions (beginning 2. EARLY FARMING COMMUNITIES from 5th millennium BC) OF SOUTH ASIA ii. Padri and Prabhas Patan traditions of The Indian subcontinent has all the Saurashtra (4th millennium BC) favourable ecological conditions necessary to give th rise to the early farming communities, referred to iii. Anarta tradition of North Gujarat (4 as Neolithic or Chalcolithic. The region witnessed millennium BC) two independent streams of origin of village iv. Ganeshwar-Jodhpura of Northwest and economies with the associated technologies, which western Rajasthan (4th millennium BC) evolve and develop through the early phases of v. Ahar tradition of Mewar (4th millennium BC) village societies into the developed and mature complex villages and the early cities hence it is vi. Kayatha and Malwa traditions of the Malwa important to trace the ongoing cultural process in Plateau (3rd millennium BC) the region. On the basis of material culture and vii. Savalda and Jorwe traditions of the northern technologies in use, the Chalcolithic of South Asia Deccan (3rd millennium BC) has been sub-divided into Early, Mature and Late phases. The earlier beginnings (approximately viii.Neolithic/Chalcolithic traditions of eastern th around 7000 BC) are seen in the northwest regions India including Mid Ganga region (4 of Afghanistan and Baluchistan, possibly as a millennium BC) result of the influence coming from Southwest ix. Ochre Colour Pottery/Copper Hoard tradition Asia. Similar development slightly later in date of North India (3rd millennium BC) 44 INDIAN JOURNAL OF HISTORY OF SCIENCE x. Narahan culture of eastern Uttar Pradesh Neolithic around 6500 BC and copper during the (towards the end of 2nd millennium BC) Chalcolithic around 4500 BC. A number of local pre-Harappan Chalcolithic cultures such as the Each of these is characterised by similar Hakra, Kot Diji, Amri, Nal and Ahar follow and features with agro-pastoral economy, trade, social, all of them have contributed substantially to the political and economic stratification with minute development of the Harappan Civilization. differences in style of pottery manufacture and the level of technological development and the origin The regions of Mewar and the Mid Ganga and evolution of these techniques, which will be basin appear to have witnessed the process of discussed in the forthcoming paragraphs. domestication and formation of village life independently in the 6th millennium BC (Shinde The earliest evidence of agriculture and et al., 2004 and Tiwari, 2002-03). The Mesolithic pastoralism in South Asia comes from the site of site of Bagor in Mewar has produced evidence of Mehrgarh situated on the north Kachhi plain at early animal domestication and semi-permanent the foot of the Bolan Pass (Jarrige, 1984). The sedentary occupation (plant remains were not region includes the Kachhi plain at the mouth of recovered and studied from this site) from where Bolan pass, the Quetta valley, the Khozdar area begins the origin of a complex village organisation in the Kalat plateau, the Kotwa region, the Bela that spread into various parts of Rajasthan and area, the coastal plain of Sonmiani Bay and the Gujarat (Shinde, 2000; 2002 and Shinde et al., Turbat oasis. It is a buffer zone between the Iranian 2004). The site of Lahuradeva in the Mid Ganga Plateau and the Indus Basin and therefore basin has also provided similar kind of evidence significant from the point of the development of (Tiwari, 2002-03). The works at the site of Padri early village cultures which could have moved (Saurashtra), Nageshwar and Loteshwar (North west from the Iranian plateau as a result of Gujarat) and Balathal and Gilund in the Mewar agricultural viability. Barley-wheat cultivation and region of Rajasthan have provided evidence of cattle and sheep/goat domestication, similar to that early village life going back to the middle of 4th of West Asia, dominated the economy and hence millennium BC (Shinde, 1998; Sonawane and the foreign influence for the first villages within Ajithprasad, 1994). the subcontinent (particularly in the north-western) probably cannot be denied. The most impressive The early phase is characterised by small evidence of this early occupation was unearthed but growing complex communities which have at the site of Mehrgarh between 1974 and 1985 already realized the favourable factors of a (Jarrige, 1984; Jarrige et al., 1995). The Aceramic sedentary lifestyle along with a mixed economy Neolithic farmers first occupied the site around based on agriculture, animal husbandry and some 7000 BC, while the subsequent phases of the amount of hunting, gathering and fishing wherever Neolithic and Chalcolithic show a continuation possible. The basic technological breakthrough in and gradual development in the material culture, ceramic, smelting and melting of metals and culminating to form the Early Harappan phase artefact manufacture in the form of tools, utensils, (3000 BC).
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