Apart from the desert, the Aravallis provide the natural eastern boundary of the Indus-Hakra plain. All along its north-east-south-east alignment in Rajasthan there is a distinct image of a metallurgical growth which seems to go back well into the fourth millennium BC. We begin with Phase II of the mesolithic occupation at Bagor near Bhilwara, which has yielded three arrowheads (with holes for hafting), one thin rod and one broken spearhead. The calibrated date range is 3501–3100 BC. To understand this occurrence we have to turn to the excavations at Ganeshwar and the distribution of related sites and metal deposits in north-eastern Rajasthan and adjacent Haryana.
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TABLE IV.7 |
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Period 1: |
microlithic industry associated with presumably wild fauna. |
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Period 2: |
microliths and animal bones continued, but also, copper objects (5 arrowheads, 3 fish-hooks, 1 spearhead, 1 awl)—both handmade and wheelmade but unpainted pottery—circular huts and stone-paved floors. |
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Period 3: |
microliths and animal bones—several hundred copper objects (arrowheads, rings, bangles, spearheads, chisels, balls, axes, etc.)—a wide range of pottery, said to be of pre-Indus civilization affinity. |
When Ganeshwar was discovered and excavated by R.C. Agrawala in the late 1970s, he also found ochre-coloured incised ware of a type which was found by him at Jodhpura in the same general area in a late fourth–early third millennia BC (calibrated) context. Ganeshwar has later contexts too, but at this point we should take due note of its early phases. The Bagor II arrowheads are of the Ganeshwar type as are a few arrowheads from Kunal IA. More than 80 Ganeshwar culture sites are known principally from the Sikar district and partly from Jaipur and Churu districts of Rajasthan. The Aravallis in this part of Rajasthan and their extensions or outliers in Haryana (cf. Narnaul and Tosam areas) constitute a major copper and tin-bearing area (tin in Tosam). However, the full implications of the development and ramifications of metallurgy in this region will have to await fuller research.