IJSECT September 2015

VIII CHAPIER-I 1/ ".... Ideas have wings, and in the third millenium the idea of civilization was in the air of Western Asia. A model civilization, however abstract, was present to the minds of the Indus founders. In their running battle against spacious problems than had been encountered either in Mesopotamia or in Egypt, they were fortified by the consciousness that it, or something like it, had been done before. And in that consciousness after one failure and another (Amri and Kot-Diji are merely examples), they won through." (Wheeler, 1966: 61-62). INTRODUCTION The Archaeological Background Archaeologists had barely begun to realize that the Mesopotamian cultures were not localized when an accidental chance led to the discovery of the Indus Valley Civilization (more commonly knovn as the Harappa Culture) in Pakistan, which was at least 2000 years older than the earliest recorded period of Indian history which begins with the invasion of Alexander, the Macedonian (327 B.C.) and the rise of the Mauryas. This civilization or culture is comparable with the contemporary civilizations of Egypt and Sumer with a chronology ranging from 2500 B.C. to 1700 B.C. Within three decades of its discovery the Harappan Culture was known to have extended over almost 340,000 square miles (Sankalia, 1962: 50), its northern most site being Rupar at the foot of the Himalayas, the southernmost - Bhagatrav in Gujarat, the westernmost that of Sutkagen-dor on the eastern border of Iran and the easternmost - Alamgirpur in the Ganga-Yamuna Doab. The immense quantity of pottery and antiquities obtained from numerous sites in a well developed stage with regional variations, has baffled all attempts made to solve the enigma of its conception. 2 Whilst excavations were in progress at the cities of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, explorations in Baluchistan) Sindh and the Punjab revealed the existence of earlier, contemporary and later cultures. The dis coveries of H. Hargreaves (1927) and Sir Aurel Stein (1929, 1931, 1937) in Baluchistan deserve mention. The latter discovered flourishing settlements of early agri cultural communities going back to 3000 B.C. in the hill valleys of northern and southern Baluchistan. Between 1927 and 1931, N. G. Majumdar (1934) carried out a systematic survey of the Indus valley in Sindh. He amassed much valuable material and was able to define the extent of minor Harappan settlements. Majumdar's phenomenal luck led him to the site of Amri which on excavation yielded habitational levels ante dating those of the Harappa culture. The same was the case at Pandiwahi, Lohri Pir and Qhazishah but since no marked similarity could be discerned between the Amri and Harappa cultures, the problem of the conception and growth of the latter remained an open challenge to archaeologists, many of whom were convinced it was of West Asiatic origin. The exploration work left incomplete by Majumdar's pre mature death was carried on by Krishna Deva and McCown (1949)• The mounds of Chanhu-daro were excavated by Earnest Mackay (1943) in 1935 revealing the important evidence of earlier and later Harappan periods superimposed by two squatter cultures - Jhukar and Jhangar - whose type sites were found earlier lower down the Indus by Majumdar. The site of Amri was again dug thirty years later by Jean-Marie Casal from 1959 to 1961 (Casal, 1964). Five main occupational periods were identified of which the first four were prehistoric. In 1946 Sir Mortimer Wheeler (1947: 91) excavat ed Harappa where he found traces of a pre-Harappan culture underlying a Harappan mud-brick defence wall. The pot sherds recovered were thin walled with a dark-purple-red slip with a dull finish, decorated by neatly-ruled horizontal black lines. The site of Kot-Diji discovered by Prof. G. S. Ghurye (1937) was re-excavated by F. A. Khan (1958) in 1957-53. Here, as at Harappa, an earlier culture was found below a Harappan citadel; a burnt layer separated the two cultures. The third lowest layer of the Kot- Dijian culture yielded a C-14 date of 2605 + 145 B.C. The pottery of this culture was akin to that of the pre- defence layers of Harappa and certain potteries from Amri Ib-IIb (Wheeler, 1968: 21). Between 1951 and 1953, Mr. Amalananda Ghosh (1952, 1953, 1959), a former Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India, led an expedition in Bikaner and discovered nearly a hundred sites, twenty-five of which yielded Harappan remains. In I960, the Archaeo logical Survey of India began excavation at one of Ghosh's sites, namely Kalibangan, in Tehsil Hanumangarh, District Sri Ganganagar. Here a pre-Harappan cultural horizon was noticed for the first time on Indian soil. On seeing the pre-historic pottery from these early layers Ghosh was prompted to re-examine his earlier pottery collection from Sothi found in 1950-53 and to his surprise he found it very similar to the pre-Harappan Kalibangan pottery. In 1964, Ghosh (1965) read a paper on "The Indus Civilization ; Its Origins, Authors, Extent and Chronology" at the seminar on Indian Prehistory and Protjh'ohistory held at Poona wherein he expressed his belief that this earlier culture at Kalibangan - which he called Sothi after its type site - might possibly have given birth to the Harappa culture. He also stated that the Sothi culture as found at Kalibangan Period I was akin to the pre-defence culture of Harappa as well as to the pre-Harappan culture of Kot-Diji. This theory aroused keen interest in me and I therefore thought of pursuing the clues provided by Ghosh. By now it was clear that the Sarasvati valley in north west Rajasthan had nurtured several cultures in the remote past and only a fresh exploration coupled with a thorough study of all the available materials could reveal their geographical distribution and chronological relationships. Despite its great archaeological potentialities the Sarasvati-Ghaggar Valley has so far not got the atten tion it deserves. Indeed, it has been an unlucky area for explorers. It was first explored in 1918 by Dr. L. P. Tessitori (1921) end twenty years later by the renowned explorer Sir Aurel Stein (1942, 1943), who followed the river from Hanumangarh up to Derawar in Pakistan. Both of them unfortunately died before any reports could be published. In 1960 Ghosh explored the Sarasvati and Drishadvati Valleys unearthing a sequence of cultures but beyond two very brief articles (1952, 1963) no account of.his discoveries has yet been published. Half a decade after Ghosh's foray, a Swedish expedition led by Dr. Hannah Rydh (1959) made a survey of early historical sites on the Sarasvati around Suratgarh and carried out an excavation at the site of Rangmahal. No light, how ever, was thrown on the prehistoric cultures. In 1955 Henry Field (1959) of the Peabody Museum, Harvard, carried out a reconnaissance along the Hakra in Bahawalpur, Pakistan. A brief account of his finds however were published by F. A. Khan (1959), whose classification and interpretation are far from satisfactory. No traces of stone age habitation have been reported from the Sarasvati river so far. The earliest cultural habitation known from Sir Aurel Stein's exploration according to unpublished information from Mr. Krishna Deva, had revealed that in "one of the Bahawalpur towns", Harappan layers were found superimposed over a settlement using black-on-buff ware which did not seem to be closely- akin to any of the known pottery from Baluchistan (Piggott, 1950: 142; 212). Much later when I gained access to Stein's (1943) manuscript on his explorations and excava tions along the "Ghaggar-Hakra" it became clear that the excavation trench, Section VIII laid at Sandhanawala-Ther on the Kakra, had at a level of 10-11 feet (3 meters) be low the Harappan level, yielded a number of light buff or cream sherds painted with various geometrical designs in shades of brown, which, according to the excavator, closely resembled the pre-Harappan Amri ware of Sindh. Although I have not been able to examine this early ware it is my belief that the single find of a thick red slipped black painted buff ware sherd (Fig. 71.* A) found by me at BD 39 on the Ghaggar belongs to the same ceramic tradition. Sir Mortimer Wheeler and Dr. George F. Dales who examined the sherd in London and Philadelphia respect ively were inclined to be of the same opinion too. It must however be mentioned that a single sherd is not sufficient evidence on which to postulate cultural affinity and only excavation would establish the presence or absence of Amri-type pottery at BD 89. Furthermore, how far this early buff ware is connected with the buff ware of pre- Harappan Kalibangan I culture on the Ghaggar is an open question. It is now clearly known that both the Amrian and Kalibangan I cultures were followed by the advent of the Harappans. The Harappan culture appears to have been succeeded by that of the Cemetery H Ware people. The ware Is called after the cemetery in which it was found at Harappa in the Punjab by Vats (1940) in two successive strata. It was alien in type, technique and decoration to that of the true Harappa culture (Wheeler, 1947.' 118). The vessels are made of well levigated clay, highly fired, the deep bright red slip being painted in black with pipal trees, intricate solar, faunal and floral motifs and is not comparable to material from any Harappan site known so far. This ware was first identified along the Hakra by Stein who found it at eight sites. An examination of Henry Field's report has yielded evidence of one more site, Turewala, on the Hakra (Field, 1959: Fig.

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