The protohistoric archaeology of Madhya Pradesh is dominated by that of the Malwa region which is a large fertile plateau drained by the Chambal, Kali Sindh, Narmada, Sipra, Betwa and other rivers, and has some trunk routes from the north to the Deccan and west India passing through it. The area is dotted with chalcolithic sites but there is no comprehensive study of their location and distribution, and out of many sites excavated, full reports are available only on Nagda, Kayatha and Navdatoli. Nagda was only vertically excavated, and for the present discussion we shall depend primarily on Kayatha and Navdatoli reports and make only passing references to the other sites.
As noted earlier, with their base in Gujarat, the Harappans were suitably located to interact with the Malwa region. In fact, in the Morena district, which lies in the north-eastern segment of the Malwa region, late Harappan sites were discovered at three places—Sihoniya, Khudai and Bassaiya—on the banks of the Asan, a tributary of the Chambal. The sites were found destroyed but pottery remained: ‘the late Harappan sturdy and thick red ware of fine fabric with such types as dish-on-stand, vase with disc base, etc’ The report came from S.A. Sali, a distinguished archaeologist, and when one combines such reports with V.S. Wakankar’s report on Manoti (Mandasore district), one is inclined to accept the postulate of a Harappan/late Harappan beginning of the Malwa chalcolithic. At Manoti Wakankar mentions some Harappan pottery types in the lower levels associated with a citadel which had ‘11 ft thick walls and a square bastion at turning points’.
However, this phase in Malwa is still ill-defined. The well-defined successive phases are the Kayatha, Ahar and the Malwa cultures, each with their own assortment of pottery and hence identified as different. Otherwise the succession is continuous. There is a 12 m thick occupational deposit at Kayatha where the modern village is located on the ancient mounds on the bank of the Chhoti Kali Sindh, a tributary of the Kali Sindh, itself a tributary of the Chambal. Over 40 sites of the Kayatha culture have been located in the north-western part of Madhya Pradesh, mostly in the Chambal valley. The calibrated date range of this culture is the second half of the third millennium BC. The typical ‘Kayatha ware’ is fine, sturdy, wheelmade and bears linear painted designs in violet on a thick brown slip which is usually applied from the mouth to the shoulder but also occasionally continues down to the base. Jars with a globular profile, bowls with thickened incurved rim and carinated shoulder, and large storage jars with heavy beaded rim are some major shapes in this pottery. The ‘Kayatha ware’ is associated with a red-painted buff ware and a red combed ware. The major shape in the thin-walled red-painted buff ware is lota, a small vessel with a flaring mouth, round bottom and carinated body. ‘Buff’ colour is the result of a wash and haematite pieces were used to paint linear designs on this surface. The red ‘combed ware’ is sturdy, bears wavy and zigzag lines and has only bowls and dishes as shapes. The large storage jars are crude and handmade with incised and applique designs. There is an extensive microlithic blade industry of locally available fine-grained chalcedony, but there are also two copper axes (cast in moulds) and 27 copper bangles in two pots. There are also weights for digging sticks. Two necklaces made of agate and carnelian beads (175 beads in one, and 160 beads in another) were found in two pots. Another pot contained 40,000 micro-beads of steatite. Domesticated cattle and horse figure in the faunal assemblage. The houses were made of mud and reed and had mud-plastered floors. An excavator of the site, M.K. Dhavalikar, believes that the ‘Kayatha ware’ has an early Harappan affinity and that its steatite micro-beads are identical with Harappan specimens. The Kayatha axes bear round indentation marks, a feature noticed on the Ganeshwar specimens too, and the probability of Ganeshwar being their source is high.
Apart from its diagnostic ceramic, white-painted black-and-red ware, the important feature of the Ahar culture level at Kayatha is the large number of terracotta bull figurines and in some cases the natural form of the bull is eventually reduced to a pair of horns on a pedestalled base.
The third chalcolithic level in Malwa is constituted by the Malwa culture, the type site of which is Navdatoli (1952–53, 1957–59) on the southern bank of the Narmada south of Indore. The typical ‘Malwa ware’ is a buff or orange-slipped ware with linear, geometric and occasionally stylized naturalistic designs in black or dark brown. Among the shapes one may mention lota, concave-sided bowl, channel-spouted bowl and pedestalled goblets. There are both circular and oblong wattle-and-daub houses. The diameter of the circular houses varies between c. 1 m and c. 4.5 m, the small ones being obviously used as stores for grains and hay. The rectangular houses are 5 to 6 m long. The walls and floors are plastered with lime and there are lanes between the houses. The microlithic blade industry is plentiful (over 23,000 specimens) and was produced probably in individual households. At Navdatoli there are copper flat-axes, wire-rings, bangles, fish-hooks, nail-parers, chisels, thick pins and a broken mid-ribbed sword. The analysed specimens have revealed both tin and lead alloying, and the axes carry round indentation marks like the Ganeshwar specimens. Saddle querns, rubbers, hammerstones, maceheads or weights for digging sticks form the general run of objects made of stone. There are beads of agate, amazonite, carnelian, chalcedony, faience, glass, jasper, lapis lazuli, steatite, shell and terracotta. Terracotta animal figurines and spindle-whorls have been found. Two varieties of wheat, linseed, black gram, green gram, green peas, khesari or Lathyrus sativus and rice (not in the earliest level but slightly later) were cultivated. There were domesticated cattle, sheep, goat and pig. Deer were hunted. The evidence of religion has been found extensively in the Malwa cultural level and Navdatoli itself shows some of it—a pit (2.3 × 1.92 × 1.35 m) dug in the floor at the centre of a house, with its sides and floor plastered with mud and charred wood at its four corners; a storage jar which shows on it in applique a shrine with a female worshipper on the right and a lizard on the left. The calibrated date range of the Malwa culture at Navdatoli is roughly c. 2000–c. 1750 BC. Among other sites, Nagda and Eran suggest massive mud walls which could have been parts of a fortification. At Azadnagar near Indore, a child was found buried (in N—S orientation, with feet cut off after death) in the house-floor with a microlithic blade with serrated edge and a small terracotta tablet below the head. Wakankar is of the view that there was more rice than wheat in chalcolithic Malwa. There was ‘profuse use’ of rice husk. Cattle/bull figurines occur in hundreds and may suggest Saivite belief of some kind. This is also supported by some terracotta representations of the phallus. At Dangwada he reports ‘a female torso and phallus combination’. Many of the bull forms and bulls bear nailimpressed crescentic decoration. Wakankar further believes that in Phase 2 of Dangwada bull-worship declined and in its place appeared ‘conical cult objects in houses and shrines’. There were pot-stands with bull and serpent figures and serpent designs on the Malwa pottery. There was fire sacrifice in circular fire-altars. He further believes that there was a separate room for performing rituals in many houses. However, the Dangwada report is only briefly published, and these assumptions cannot be confirmed.
At Nagda, the chalcolithic level was succeeded, after a short duration, by an iron-using level which shows continuity from the earlier chalcolithic level. On this basis the date of the beginning of the iron-bearing level at Nagda should be well within the second millennium BC.