4000 year old settlement found due to excavation in odisha

News

• Archaeological wing,Odisha discovered a 4,000-year-old settlement and ancient
artifacts in Balasore.
 Traces of three cultural phases:
 Chalcolithic period (2000 to 1000 BC.)
 Iron Age (1000 to 400 BC)
 Early Historic Period (400 to 200 BC).

Human colonization in India

• Two broad periods – prehistoric and historic.
 Prehistoric – divided into stone, bronze and iron ages.
 Stone age: divided into palaeolithic, mesolithic
and neolithic periods.

• Neolithic period: a settled, food-producing way of life.

• Introduction of Copper – the chalcolithic period.

Neolithic and Chalcolithic period

• India – Neolithic period and Chalcolithic period flourished simultaneously – 4th to 2nd millennia B.C.
 Represents farming based, settled village way of life.

• Neolithic culture – restricted distribution.
 Kashmir valley, northern Vindhyas, middle Ganga
valley, and eastern, north-eastern and south India.

• Chalcolithic cultures – wider distribution.
 Entire Ganga valley, eastern RJ, Malwa or western MP, some parts of GJ, western MH, and the northern Vindhyas.

Differences

• Mainly regarding distribution pattern,
technology, architecture and ceramics.
 Marked increase in the number of settlements.
 Introduction of copper-bronze – tools, weapons and ornaments etc.
 Improvement in architecture.
 Introduction of wheel-made pottery.
 Diversification of wares.
 Decoration of vessels by painted and incised designs.

India’s Important chalcolithic cultures

1. Ochre-coloured pottery (OCP) culture:
    Indo-Gangetic Divide and upper Ganga-Yamuna
   Doab.
    Named after a ceramic type – extremely rolled
   and fragile – wash of red ochre which is easily
   washed off.
    First recognised by B.B. Lal in 1951 in a small
   excavation at Bisauli and Rajpur Parsu (U.P).
2. Ahar culture or Banas culture:
    Mewar region of Rajasthan.
    Among the earliest Chalcolithic cultures of India.
    Type site – Ahar, in District Udaipur, Rajasthan – excavated in1961-62.
3. Kayatha and Malwa cultures:
    Malwa region of western MP.  Kayatha site in Ujjain dist., MP.  Malwa culture – most predominant
   chalcolithic culture of central India.
4. Malwa and Jorwe cultures – western
   Maharashtra.
    Jorwe – important and characteristic
   chalcolithic culture of Maharashtra –
   extend all over except the coastal
   strip on the west and Vidarbha.
    Jorwe site in Ahmadnagar district,
   Gujrat – discovered in 1950.
5. Narhan culture and variants – northern
   Vindhyas and the middle and lower Ganga
   valley.
    Narhan village situated at the left bank
   of Ghaghara river – Gorakhpur, Uttar
   Pradesh.
    Pre-iron Phase Chalcolithic culture with
   the principal ceramic assemblages of
   white painted Black-and-Red Ware.