Orissa
We have earlier noted the existence of a neolithic level at Kuchai near Mayurbhanj in Orissa. Because this level appears at the end of a long and continuous prehistoric sequence in the region, there is a possibility that this level is fairly early. Further, the occurrence of domesticated rice in a site (Baidipur) of the same type in this area makes the issue interesting. However, the unconfirmed report of a thermoluminescent date of c. 1000 BC for pottery from this level at Kuchai is not inspiring, and when one considers c. 800 BC (calibrated) date of neolithic celts associated with copper implements at Sankarjang in Dhenkanal, one cannot view a date of c. 1000 BC for the Orissan neolithic particularly surprising. There is no dearth of the surface occurrence of polished neolithic tools in Orissa, and apparently large-scale manufacturing places have been noted in several areas, but dales and stratigraphy remain a serious problem both for the neolithic and the chalcolithic in Orissa. As far as the chalcolithic is concerned, sites bearing black-and-red ware are known, but it is difficult to say if this black-and-red ware is the chalcolithic black-and-red ware of a type which has been found widely in the second millennium BC context in the neighbouring states of Madhya Pradesh, Andhra and West Bengal.
The excavations (1990–92) at Golbai Sasan on the left bank of the Mandakini river (a tributary of the Daya flowing into the Chilka coastal lake) seem to have changed this picture of uncertainty regarding the neolithic–chalcolithic in Orissa. Period I at the site is neolithic and shows a range of dull red and grey handmade pottery with cord or tortoise shell impressions in association with a few worked pieces of bone and traces of floors and post-holes. The excavated area of this period was very limited in extent. Period IIA is chalcolithic because it has yielded, in addition to polished stone and bone tools, copper objects such as chisel, bangle, fish-hook and ring. The polished stone industry comprised axes, adzes, shouldered celts, bone tools, single-row harpoons and spears. The find of an adze made of a wide piece of semi-mineralized bone is also noteworthy. Among the other bone objects one notes ear-studs and pendants. The pottery was mainly handmade and partly wheelmade, including terracotta crucibles, unpainted black-and-red ware, dull red ware, and burnished black, chocolate and red wares. The burnished chocolate ware pots show in some cases post-firing paintings (oblique and vertical strokes and hatched triangles) in red ochre. The shapes include dish-on-stand as a type. Circular huts (3.9 to 7.9 m in diameter) with post-holes and hearths have been found in this level. Other objects comprised terracotta spindle-whorls, sling balls and a crude human figurine. Period IIB continues the features of Period IIA but shows an iron tool resembling a polished stone celt in shape. Cattle, goat, deer and elephant figure among the faunal records, and rice, ‘moong’ and ‘kulthi’ have been noted among the crop remains of the periods IIA and IIB. There is no reason why these periods of Golbai Sasan should not cover together the whole of the second millennium BC and go back well into the third millennium BC.
The North-eastern States
The entire north-eastern region has yielded a rich haul of polished neolithic tools but no consolidated picture of a neolithic level has yet emerged. In Assam, two neolithic sites—Daojali Hading in the north Kachhar hills and Sarutaru on the border between Assam and Meghalaya—were excavated some years ago. The 45 cm thick occupation deposit at Daojali Hading revealed neolithic stone and fossilwood axes, adzes, hoes, chisels, grinding slabs, querns, muilers, handmade grey to dull red cord-marked pottery, dull red stamped pottery and plain red pottery. Sarutaru has revealed only brown/buff/grey handmade ware, some of which bears cord marks. Otherwise the cultural assemblage is the same. Unfortunately these sites are not dated. More recently, several places in Nagaland have yielded both handmade grey ware and neolithic tools but these sites are still unexcavated. However, the mere existence of neolithic tools and handmade grey ware does not mean that these sites are early in date. The ‘neolithic culture’ in the Kanai Goan Reserve in Dibrugarh district has yielded a date in the sixth century AD. In view of the uncertainty of evidence it is also difficult to accept the claim of a Hoabinhian level at the base of a neolithic cultural layer in a pit dug at Rongram Alagiri in the Garo hills. The basis of this claim is the occurrence of pebble unifacial tools associated with heavy stone pounders in the pre-neolithic level of the site. A trial trench at Pynthorlangtein in Meghalaya showed 1 m deposit of neolithic tools and the waste product in association with handmade cord-impressed red pottery. The only early date of handmade cord-marked ware in the entire north-east is a thermoluminescent date of 1650 ± 350 BC from the site of Napchik located on a hillslope in Manipur. Handmade tripod vessels, stone choppers, scrapers, flakes, edged ground knife, grinding stone, polished celts, etc. constitute the general assemblage of the site. It thus appears that a lot more about the neolithic stage in the north-east is still waiting to be discovered.
West Bengal
The chalcolithic level in West Bengal is clearly marked, but its antecedence, if any, in this area is as yet unknown except at the site of Pandu Rajar Dhibi where Period I does not seem to be associated with copper and is characterized by a handmade grey ware with rice husk impressions, painted red pottery, a limited quantity of black-and-red ware, ground stone tools, microliths and bone tools. The absence of metal may also be due to the limited excavations of this level. The dominant pottery of Period II is white-painted black-and-red ware with bowls and carinated vessels as its principal shapes. Channel-spouted bowls of black-and-red ware occur in a limited number. The associated pottery types are a rich red-slipped black-painted pottery, black-slipped pottery and a buff/grey plain pottery. The painted designs occur on black-and-red, red and chocolate-slipped wares (mostly on red, with a much lesser proportion in black-and-red and chocolate-slipped types) and comprise about 15 major types with sub-types, among which triangles, band, comb and ladder designs are important. Bone implements, a limited quantity of copper objects, beads of semi-precious stones, terracotta female figurines, a fragmentary piece of lapis lazuli and iron spearheads and points have been recovered from this period. Regarding the occurrence of iron objects in this period it has been said that ‘they have mostly been found from the upper levels, though their occurrence in the lower levels was also noticed.’ Periods III and IV continue these features tilt one gets early historic pottery in Period V. Period I seems to date from the 15th century calibrated BC whereas Period II seems to fall in the 12th century calibrated BC.
Pandu Rajar Dhibi in the Ajay valley is the first such site to have been excavated in West Bengal. Bharatpur in the Damodar valley yielded in its Period I microliths, tiny neolithic celts, bone tools, steatite beads and copper objects in association with a predominantly black-and-red pottery. The earliest date range of Bharatpur Period I is 1735–1417 BC (calibrated). Its Period II is early historical. Mahisdal in the Kopai valley showed in its Period I house-floors with soling of terracotta nodules, prolific bone and microlithic tools, a single flat celt of copper, steatite and semi-precious stone beads, terracotta bangles, decorated combs and a terracotta phallus, apart from the usual black-and-red ware and associated pottery range. A storage pit with a large quantity of charred rice grains was found in this level. The rice grains belonged to a fine variety. Period II at the site possessed all the earlier features but also contained iron arrowheads, spearheads, chisels and large quantities of iron ore. Another find was an unburnt clay seal with indeterminate symbols on the obverse and impressions of cross strings on the reverse. The earliest calibrated date range of Mahisdal Period I is 1619–1415 BC. Rammed house floors of wattle-and-daub houses, bone tools, the usual range of black-and-red ware and associated pottery, a limited quantity of microlithic flakes and pieces of iron slag occur in Period I of Bahiri in the Ajay valley, dated in the calibrated range of 1112–803 BC and later. In addition to the usual pottery types, the cultural assemblage of Period I of Mangalkot in the Ajay valley comprised wattle-and-daub houses with mud floors plastered with cowdung and occasionally rammed with potsherds and granular gravels, stylized human terracotta figures, terracotta beads, netsinkers, bangles, sling balls, discs, beads of semi-precious stones, limited number of microliths, prolific and diverse bone tools, copper spiral bangles and fishhooks and iron slag, bloom, point, spearhead and knife. The date is in the range of Period I at Bahiri.
As in the Deccan, burials (both extended and urn types) have been located within the habitations but it appears that they were generally found in fragmentary conditions. A general report is available only on one such skeleton (from Kurmitha in the Kopai valley). The skeleton which belonged to a female aged 50 (height 155 cm) was oriented in a north-south direction with the arms flexed at the elbow. It belonged to the medium-sized head category (cranial index: 77.38) and the extent of the dental wear ‘is reflective of a higher content of siliceous and carbohydrate vegetarian stuffs in the diet of the person’. The cranial index of Pandu Rajar Dhibi and Haraipur skeletal finds is said to belong to the long-headed type. The faunal remains from such West Bengal sites have been well studied. Domesticated cattle, buffalo, goat and pig occur at Pandu Rajar Dhibi which also shows hog deer and sambar (Cervus duvauceli), fish (mostly large carps), turtles and fowl. The list of faunal remains at Baneshwar Danga is also more or less the same. About 10 per cent tin alloying has been noticed in a piece of copper wire at Bahiri.
There are 70-odd reported chalcolithic and Iron Age black-and-red ware sites in West Bengal. What is interesting is that, with the exception of Bangarh in the Barind plain of the northern part of the state, which shows only a piece of this pottery on the surface, they are distributed mostly in the area to the west of the Bhagirathi. The river valleys are, from the north to the south, Dwaraka, Mayurakshi, Bakreshwar, Kopai, Ajay, Damodar, Dwarakeshwar, Silai and Kasai and their smaller tributaries, all flowing through a sloping plateau region from the west to the east towards the Bhagirathi. A study of their individual locations suggests that some of the sites in the western part of the state were located in agriculturally less attractive areas and were perhaps geared towards the raw material resources of the main part of the Chhotanagpur plateau. Otherwise, the overall preference was for the fertile stretches along rivers and for a general nearness to low-lying lands. Further, the gravelly iron-rich lateritic uplands within the distribution area of these sites would have taken care of the problem of getting iron ores, and to some extent the various types of rocks—mainly chert and quartz—used by them, because of the general abundance of rocky outcrops within the distribution area itself. However, materials like copper and tin had to be brought from the main Chhotanagpur plateau which is some distance away. The copper belt of Singhbhum–Hazaribagh in this plateau section of Bihar must have been the primary source of copper, although the outliers of this belt in the adjacent West Bengal district of Bankura could have played a part too. The source of tin was Hazaribagh—Giridih, some 300 km away from sites like Bahiri and Mangalkot where tin has been reported in the black-and-red ware context. We have also suggested that in the absence of the manufacture of polished stone celts at these sites, it is possible that such celts were traded items too. The general range of site-size is from below 1 acre to about 8 to 9 acres, with most of them falling in the lower bracket.
Bihar
South Bihar comprises mostly the Chhotanagpur plateau which has a long prehistoric sequence. Whether this sequence led to an early neolithic or farming community level is not known. There is no dearth of neolithic celts in certain areas of the plateau (cf. the Santal Parganas) but no corresponding site has been found and excavated. The first archaeologically identifiable village level in the plateau is represented at Barudih in Singhbhum district. This site contains in the same level microliths, neolithic celts, iron slag and implements and a range of wheelmade pottery among which black-and-red ware seems to be prominent. There are four radiocarbon dates from the site and the earliest calibrated range is 1401–837 BC. No authentic neolithic site has yet been discovered in the Chhotanagpur plateau. This is surprising, especially in view of the apparently wide occurrence of neolithic level in the alluvial plains of northern Bihar where five sites—Chirand, Chechar-Kutubpur, Senuar, Maner and Taradih—are already excavated. Chirand has an about 1 km long mound at the confluence of the Sarayu and the Ganga. Chechar-Kutubpur lies on the bank of the Ganga near Biddupur on the opposite side of Patna while Senuar lies on the bank of a stream in a fertile plain at the foot of the Kaimur range not far from Sasaram. Maner lies on the bank of an old course of the Ganga near Patna and Taradih is basically Bodh Gaya, within a stone’s throw of the Mahabodhi temple. Basically they are all riverbank sites, and the fact that they comfortably formed villages in such widely spaced areas as Bodh Gaya and Chirand and that too straight on the banks of major rivers like the Ganga (cf. Maner, Chechar-Kutubpur and Chirand) in the third millennium BC suggests that much more remains to be known about the formation of these neolithic sites in the Bihar plains. Dates are available from Chirand and Senuar, both being considerably earlier than c. 2000 BC (calibrated). The dates do not come from the lowest levels of these sites; in the case of Chirand, the level from which the first date comes is much above the lowest level of its 3.5 m thick neolithic deposit. The beginning of occupation at Chirand may even be earlier than the middle of the third millennium BC.
The basic pottery types of Period I or the neolithic deposit of Chirand comprise red, grey and black handmade wares (some with post-firing painting and graffiti). There are also examples of black-and-red ware. The dominant type, however, is the red ware. The exterior of many grey pots bears burnishing whereas their interior remains unburnished. The types include footed cups, channel-spouted bowls and ordinary spouted bowls. Terracotta objects from this level include figurines of humped bull, birds, snakes, and bangles, beads, sling balls and objects decorated by punctured dots. There is a wide range of bone and antler implements and bone objects include pendants, ear-rings, discs, beads and bangles of both bone and ivory. There are neolithic axes and other implements. Stone pestles and querns have been found. There is also a rich microlithic industry. Beads are made of agate, carnelian, jasper, steatite, faience, etc. Circular wattle-and-daub huts with rammed floors (4 m in diameter), post-holes, hearths, etc. have been found and there is also a reference to the mud boundary walls of houses. Among the crops are rice, wheat, barley, moong and lentil and animal remains include a wide range from domesticated cattle to elephants and rhinoceros. Copper in any form is not reported from this level.
Period II of Chirand is chalcolithic in the sense that copper appears and the pottery becomes dominantly black-and-red ware and the associated types of grey/buff, black and red-slipped wares. Otherwise, the earlier features continue: microlithic tools, neolithic celts, terracotta beads (some with incised designs), steatite and semi-precious stone beads, stone balls, pestles and querns, etc. Its earliest calibrated date-range is 1936–1683 BC. The upper level of this period yielded numerous iron objects.
Fig. 37 Chirand pottery (Indian Arch.—A Rev.)
The neolithic level at Chechar-Kutubpur has three sub-periods: ‘A’ associated with handmade red and grey ware with ‘twisted rope’, ‘pinched’, ‘applique’ and ‘cut pattern’ designs on the shoulder of the vessels; ‘B’ when spouted vessels appear; and ‘C’ marked by the appearance of grey and black-and-red (handmade?) wares. Circular wattle-and-daub huts with mud floors and hearths in the centre of such floors, storage pits, a rich industry of bone and antler tools (a double-forked antler with a hole for hafting at the junction of the fork) and micro-beads of steatite and chalcedony (the last item only in IC?) have also been noticed. Senuar has 1.5 m thick ‘pure neolithic’ deposit containing wheelmade red ware, burnished red ware and burnished grey ware, a limited quantity of cord-impressed ware, a rich microlithic industry, some triangular polished celts, bone tools, semi-precious stone beads, stone pestles, saddle quems, hammerstones, pottery discs, wattle-and-daub houses, rice, barley, dwarf wheat (Triticum sphaerococcum), sorghum millet, ragi millet, lentil, grass-pea (Lathyrus sativus) and field-pea (Pisum arvense). The next period (2.02 m deposit) has been called neolithic–chalcolithic purely on the basis of the presence of copper (a fish-hook, a piece of wire, a needle and an indeterminate object) and a fragmentary rod of lead, but otherwise there is not much change from the earlier period except the introduction of bread wheat (Triticum aestivum), kodon millet (Paspalum scrobiculatum), chick-pea (Cicer arietinum), green pea (Vigna radiata) and horse gram (Dolichos biflorus). Period III at the site introduces the black-and-red ware, aconite bean (Vigna aconitifolia), sesame, safflower and linseed. The beginning of the neolithic at Senuar can be put around c. 2300 BC (calibrated).
Maner neolithic (Period I with 3.45 m thick deposit) has not been dated but it has both burnished and unburnished red and grey wares (handmade) with long-necked vases, bowls with short stems, lipped bowls and spouted bowls, among other shapes. In addition, there are microlithic tools, bone points and terracotta spindle whorls. Period II at the site (1.8 m thick deposit) is associated with black-and-red ware. An interesting find of this period is a terracotta model of a double-edged axe with punctured triangles at the edges.
Taradih or Bodh Gaya has two phases of the neolithic (Period I): ‘A’ associated only with handmade burnished and unburnished red pottery and cord-impressed wares, and ‘B’ marked by the appearance of handmade burnished grey ware with post-firing ochre-colour paintings in some cases. Neolithic celts and microlithic and bone tools, bones of cattle, goat, pig, buffalo, sheep and deer, along with those of birds, fish, shell and snail, the remains of rice, wheat and barley, and wattle-and-daub house remains with traces of hearths constitute the general assemblage. Period II is chalcolithic marked by the continuation of earlier elements and the introduction of black-and-red ware, a limited number of copper objects, lentil and a large quantity of semi-precious stone beads.
On the whole, the neolithic–chalcolithic assemblage of the Gangetic plains of Bihar is remarkably interesting: from approximately the middle of the third millennium BC we see fully agricultural and pre-metallic villages with a wide range of crops on the river banks of a substantial area of Bihar. There is no evidence of neolithic levels yet from the Bhagalpur area though the chalcolithic black-and-red ware has been found and it is perhaps only a matter of time when the earlier neolithic phase is discovered. However, there is no stratified evidence yet of neolithic and chalcolithic phases in the case of Bihar to the north of the Ganga except the northern bank of the river.