Painted Grey Ware culture

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Painted Grey Ware culture
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Map of some Painted Grey Ware (PGW) sites
Geographical rangeTemplate:Ubli
PeriodIron Age
Datesc. 1200–600 BCE
Major sitesTemplate:Ubli
CharacteristicsTemplate:Ubli
Preceded byTemplate:Ubli
Followed byMahajanapadas

Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Sidebar/configuration' not found. The Painted Grey Ware culture (PGW) is an Iron Age Indo-Aryan culture of the western Gangetic plain and the Ghaggar-Hakra valley in the Indian subcontinent, conventionally dated c.1200 to 600–500 BCE,[1][2] or from 1300 to 500–300 BCE.[3][4][5] It is a successor of the Cemetery H culture and black and red ware culture (BRW) within this region, and contemporary with the continuation of the BRW culture in the eastern Gangetic plain and Central India.[6]

File:Painted Grey Ware sites map 1.svg
Cemetery H, Late Harappan, OCP, Copper Hoard and Painted Grey ware sites

Characterized by a style of fine, grey pottery painted with geometric patterns in black,[7] the PGW culture is associated with village and town settlements, domesticated horses, ivory-working, and the advent of iron metallurgy.[8] As of 2018, 1,576 PGW sites have been discovered.[9] Although most PGW sites were small farming villages, "several dozen" PGW sites emerged as relatively large settlements that can be characterized as towns; the largest of these were fortified by ditches or moats and embankments made of piled earth with wooden palisades, albeit smaller and simpler than the elaborate fortifications which emerged in large cities after 600 BCE.[10]

The PGW Culture probably corresponds to the middle and late Vedic period, i.e., the Kuru-Panchala kingdom, the first large state in the Indian subcontinent after the decline of the Indus Valley Civilisation.[11][12] The later vedic literature provides a mass of information on the life and culture of the times. It is succeeded by Northern Black Polished Ware c. 700–500 BCE, associated with the rise of the great Mahajanapada states and of the Magadha Empire.

Dating

The Painted Grey Ware culture (PGW) is conventionally dated c.1200 to 500 BCE.[1][2]

Akinori Uesugi regards PGW as having three periods within North Indian Iron Age which are:

Period I (c. 1300–1000 BCE)
When it makes its appearance in the Ghaggar valley and the upper Ganga region.
Period II (c. 1000–600 BCE)
When it spreads into the western part of the Ganga valley.
Period III (c. 600–300 BCE)
With interactions to the east.[5]

Overview

File:Painted Grey Ware - Sonkh - 1000-600 BCE - Showcase 6-15 - Prehistory and Terracotta Gallery - Government Museum - Mathura 2013-02-24 6461.JPG
Painted Grey Ware, Sonkh (Uttar Pradesh), 1000–600 BCE. Government Museum, Mathura
File:PGW fragments BM.jpg
Fragments of Painted Grey Ware, about 1000 BC, from Hastinapur and Radhakund, Uttar Pradesh, and Panipat and Tilpat, Haryana. British Museum
File:BaraSite.jpg
Shards of Painted Grey Ware (right) and Harappan red pottery (left) from Rupnagar, Punjab
File:Indo-Iranian origins.png
Archaeological cultures associated with Indo-Iranian migrations (after EIEC). The Andronovo, BMAC and Yaz cultures have often been associated with Indo-Iranian migrations. The GGC (Swat), Cemetery H, Copper Hoard and PGW cultures are candidates for cultures associated with Indo-Aryan migrations.

The PGW culture cultivated rice, wheat, millet and barley, and domesticated cattle, sheep, pigs, and horses. Houses were built of wattle-and-daub, mud, or bricks, ranging in size from small huts to large houses with many rooms.[citation needed] There is a clear settlement hierarchy, with a few central towns that stand out amongst numerous small villages. Some sites, including Jakhera in Uttar Pradesh, demonstrate a "fairly evolved, proto-urban or semi-urban stage" of this culture, with evidence of social organization and trade, including ornaments of gold, copper, ivory, and semi-precious stones, storage bins for surplus grain, stone weights, paved streets, water channels and embankments.[13]

The plough was used for cultivation. There are also indications of growing complexity of society as population increased and the size and number of settlements multiplied. Arts and crafts of the PGW people are represented by ornaments (made from terracotta, stone, faience, and glass), human and animal figurines (made from terracotta) as well as "incised terracotta discs with decorated edges and geometric motifs" which probably had "ritual meaning", perhaps representing symbols of deities.[14] There are a few stamp seals with geometric designs but no inscription, contrasting with both the prior Harappan seals and the subsequent Brahmi-inscribed seals of the Northern Black Polished Ware culture.[14]

The PGW pottery shows a remarkable degree of standardization. It is dominated by bowls of two shapes, a shallow tray and a deeper bowl, often with a sharp angle between the walls and base. The range of decoration is limited – vertical, oblique or criss-cross lines, rows of dots, spiral chains and concentric circles being common.[15]

At Bhagwanpura in the Kurukshetra district of Haryana, excavations have revealed an overlap between the late Harappan and Painted Grey Ware cultures, large houses that may have been elite residences, and fired bricks that may have been used in Vedic altars.[14]

Fresh surveys by archaeologist Vinay Kumar Gupta suggest Mathura was the largest PGW site around 375 hectares in area.[16] Among the largest sites is also the recently excavated Ahichatra, with at least 40 hectares of area in PGW times along with evidence of early construction of the fortification which goes back to PGW levels.[17] Towards the end of the period, many of the PGW settlements grew into the large towns and cities of the Northern Black Polished Ware period.[18][full citation needed]

Interpretations

The pottery style of this culture is different from the pottery of the Iranian Plateau and Afghanistan (Bryant 2001).Template:Missing long citation In some sites, PGW pottery and Late Harappan pottery are contemporaneous.[19] The archaeologist Jim Shaffer (1984:84–85)Template:Missing long citation has noted that "at present, the archaeological record indicates no cultural discontinuities separating Painted Grey Ware from the indigenous protohistoric culture." However, the continuity of pottery styles may be explained by the fact that pottery was generally made by indigenous craftsmen even after the Indo-Aryan migration.[20] According to Chakrabarti (1968)Template:Missing long citation and other scholars, the origins of the subsistence patterns (e.g. rice use) and most other characteristics of the Painted Grey Ware culture are in eastern India or even Southeast Asia.[note 1]

Recent archaeology

In 2015, two periods of PGW were identified, at Ahichhatra, the earliest from c. 1500 to 800 BCE, and the late from 800 to 400 BCE.[21][note 2]

In 2014, the PGW horizon of Kampil excavations were published as 2310 ± 120 BCE and 1360 ± 90 BCE by archaeologist D. P. Tewari.[23]

In 2013, further excavations at Alamgirpur, near Delhi, revealed contiguous occupation of the site, from Early Harappan, through Mature Harappan, Late Harappan, and into a period overlap between the later part of the Harappan phase (with a "noticeable slow decline in quality") and the earliest PGW levels; a sample of beans and grains from this transition layer (ZB 26 OxA-21882) offered a radiocarbon dating of 3659 ± 31 years BP (1647 BCE).[24]

In 2009, a team of the Archaeological Survey of India led by B. R. Mani and Vinay Kumar Gupta collected charcoal samples from the spoil of an illegally excavated, government protected mound at Gosna, a site 6 km east of Mathura across the Yamuna river, where two of the radiocarbon dates came out to be 2160 BCE and 2170 BCE. The site may have had a plain or painted grey ware association, but the evidence has been lost.[16]

In 2006, excavation at Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka has unearthed Plain Grey Ware pottery (in North India associated with Painted Grey Ware) from the 'Basal early historic' period of Anuradhapura (600–500 BCE) showing connections with North India.[25]

See also

Notes

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  1. ^ See also Indo-Aryan migration#Archaeological evidence.
  2. ^ Petrie et al. (2019) mention 1500 to 700 BCE.[22]

References

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  1. ^ a b Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Adams, Douglas Q. (January 1997). Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. Taylor & Francis. pp. 310ff. ISBN 978-1-884964-98-5.
  2. ^ a b Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Jain, Kailash Chand (1972). Malwa Through the Ages, from the Earliest Times to 1305 A.D. Motilal Banarsidass. pp. 96ff. ISBN 978-81-208-0824-9.
  3. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Possehl, G. L. (2002). The Indus civilization: A contemporary perspective. Walnut Creek, California; Oxford: AltaMira Press. p. 29.
  4. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Bates, J. (2020). "Kitchen gardens, wild forage and tree fruits: A hypothesis on the role of the Zaid season in the indus civilisation (c. 3200–1300 BCE)". Archaeological Research in Asia. 21. Table 1, p. 2.
  5. ^ a b Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Uesugi, Akinori (2018). "An Overview on the Iron Age in South Asia". In Uesugi, Akinori (ed.). Iron Age in South Asia. Kansai University. Fig. 6, pp. 9–12. ISBN 978-4-9909150-1-8.
  6. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Southworth, Franklin (2005). Linguistic Archaeology of South Asia. Routledge. p. 177.
  7. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.De Laet, Sigfried J.; Herrmann, Joachim (January 1996). History of Humanity: From the seventh century B.C. To the seventh century A.D. UNESCO. ISBN 9789231028120.
  8. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Mallory, J. P.; Adams, Douglas Q. (1997). Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781884964985.
  9. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Uesugi, Akinori (2018). "A Study on the Painted Grey Ware". Heritage: Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies in Archaeology. 6: 2.
  10. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Heitzman, James (2008). The City in South Asia. Routledge. pp. 12–13.
  11. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Samuel, Geoffrey (2010). The Origins of Yoga and Tantra: Indic Religions to the Thirteenth Century. Cambridge University Press. pp. 45–51.
  12. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Witzel, Michael (1989). "Tracing the Vedic dialects". In Caillat, Colette (ed.). Dialectes dans les litteratures Indo-Aryennes. Paris: French School of the Far East. pp. 97–265.
  13. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Singh, Upinder (2009). A History of Ancient and Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12th Century. Delhi: Longman. pp. 246–248.
  14. ^ a b c Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Kenoyer, J. M. (2006). "Cultures and Societies of the Indus Tradition. In Historical Roots in". In Thapar, R. (ed.). The Making of 'the Aryan'. New Delhi: National Book Trust. pp. 21–49.
  15. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Allchin, Bridget; Allchin, Raymond (1982). The Rise of Civilization in India and Pakistan. Cambridge University Press.
  16. ^ a b Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Gupta, Vinay Kumar (2014). "Early Settlement of Mathura: An Archaeological Perspective". History and Society, New Series. 41. New Delhi: Nehru Memorial Museum and Library: 1–37.
  17. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Mani, B. R. (17 September 2013). "What Lies Beneath". Educational Times.
  18. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Kenoyer, Jonathan Mark. "Cultures and Societies of the Indus Tradition" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 1 January 2014. Retrieved 4 January 2014.
  19. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Shaffer, Jim (1993). "Reurbanization: The eastern Punjab and beyond". In Spodek, H.; Srinivasan, D. M. (eds.). Urban Form and Meaning in South Asia: The Shaping of Cities from Prehistoric to Precolonial Times.
  20. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Witzel, Michael (2001). "Autochthonous Aryans? The Evidence from Old Indian and Iranian Texts" (PDF). Electric Journal of Vedic Studies. 7 (3): 1–93. Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 May 2013. Retrieved 13 February 2013.
  21. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Pokharia, Anil K.; Srivastava, Chanchala; Vikram, Bhuvan; et al. (10 October 2015). "On the botanical findings from excavations at Ahichchhatra: a multicultural site in Upper Ganga Plain, Uttar Pradesh" (PDF). Current Science. 109 (7): 1301. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 March 2016.
  22. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Neogi, Sayantani; French, Charles A. I.; Durcan, Julie A.; Singh, Rabindra N.; Petrie, Cameron A. (2019). "Geoarchaeological insights into the location of Indus settlements on the plains of northwest India" (PDF). Quaternary Research. 94 (published March 2020): 140.
  23. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Tewari, D. P. (2014). "The Ceramic Traditions from Kampil Excavations". Puratattva. 44: 194–207.
  24. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Singh, R. N.; Petrie, Cameron; et al. (2013). "Recent Excavations at Alamgirpur, Meerut District: A Preliminary Report". Man and Environment. 38 (1): 32–54.
  25. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Tyagi, Manisha (2006). "Commercial Relations Between North India and Sri Lanka in Ancient Period: A Study". Proceedings of the Indian History Congress. 67: 106–117. ISSN 2249-1937. JSTOR 44147927.

Further reading

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