ARCHAEOLOGY & THE EARLY INDIAN PAST

What is Archaeology?

Archaeology is the study of human past. Study of grand palaces, temples ,  discarded product of  everyday human activity, broken pottery, different  structures, artefacts, bones, seeds,  pollen,  seals, coins, sculptures & Inscriptions.

Archaeological related 3 technical terms are-

Artefact

Industry

Assemblage

Artefact  :   An artefac is  any  portable  object made  or altered by human hands like pottery, tools.

Industry  :    Similar  artefacts made of the same material found at a site  comprise an Industry like  Microlith industry, Blade & Burin Industry.

Assemblage  :    All the Industries  found at a site  from  its Assemblage.

If  similar assemblages are found at several sites – this called archaeological culture.

Type of  archaeology

Field Archaeology

Marine/ under water Archaeology

Cognative Archaeology

Ethno-Archaeology

Salvage Archaeology

Palaeontology

Paleopathology

Paleobotanical

Field  Archaeology  :   This type of archaeology  deals with Exploration & Excavation of sites.  Sites  are  places  where material remains of past human activity can be identified.

They  discovered by using clues in literature,  by  regional or village surveys or with the  help of  aerial photography.  Another process is remote – sensing   techniques  such  as  LANDSAT  imagery. Scanners of  LANDSAT  satellites create digital images  of  the  earth’s   surface  and can help identify features  such as ancient river courses, canals, embankment & buried settlements.

Archaeological   reconstruction depends  on the amount  and kind of material that  is preserved, and this in turn  depends on the objects themselves  & on environmental factors ,  particularly soil and  climate. Tropical  regions with  heavy rains, acidic soils,  warm climates, & dense  vegetation  are not favourable  for preservation .

Sites are not  excavated  just to see what  they contain,  but rather to uncover their stratiographic sequence.  It’s a very important  to know the stratigraphic context  of artefacts, like the  precise level at which they were found &  what  other kinds of things were found along with them.

Two  type of Excavation –

1.       Horizontal

2.       Vertical

§  Horizontal-   Where   a  large surface area is exposed

§  Vertical-    Where  the digging involves a  small surface area

Recording is very  important  because excavation is distructive- some  features  of the upper layers have to be destroyed as archaeologists  move from one layer to next. Regional  surveys  are conducted by walking over carefully selected sections of an  area, observing  the   distribution & nature of surface features  & finds.

Marine/ underwater Archaeology :  In most other countries marine archaeology deals mainly with shipwrecks.  Marine archaeology  involves many specialists such as oceanographers,  geologists,  geophysicists,  & driver- photographers. It’s also require special equipment  like Echo sounding system, under water metal ditectors.

In recent times  exciting under water  discoveries have been made of the  coast of Dwarka   &   bet Dwarka in  Gujarat.  There are remains of a submerged port-city,  including  fortification walls  &  stone anchors, perhaps going back to 1500 BCE.

Cognitive  Archaeology :   Which deals with ways of thinking, beliefs &  religion  it’s a fact developing area  within archaeology. An archaeological culture need not necessarily correspond to a linguistic group, political units  or a social group such as a lineage, clan or tribe.

Ethno Archaeology   :    Ethnography is the study of living cultures &  communities.    Ethno-archaeology  studies the behavior &   practices  of  living  communities in order   to interpret   the    archaeological evidence  related to communities  of the past.

The Indian subcontinent  is an  area  where  many  traditional features  & methods survive   for  instance  in agriculture,  animal husbandary,  house building , the clothes people wear  & the  food  they  eat.   Modern craftpersons  are   an  important   guide  for understanding  the ways  in which  ancient  craftpersons  made things.

For instance a tradition of carnelian bead manufacturing  exists in khambhat in Gujarat. Studying modern bead making  in this region  gives  valuable  clues about the way in which the Harappan beads may have been made  &  the possible social  organization of the bead makers.   Studies  of modern communities  of hunter-gathers  & shifting   cultivators can help understand the  life-ways of people  who followed  similar subsistence  strategies in the past.

Salvage Archaeology   :    This archaeology aims at identifying endangered  sites & saving  them  from destruction.

The site of  Nagarjunikonda in the  Guntur  district of Andhra Pradesh  was submerged   water when the  Nagarjunasagar dam was  built across  the Krishna.  1954 & 1960  officers  of the  Archaeological Survey of India thoroughly explored & excavated. 9 of the most important structures  were transplanted  &  rebuilt on top of the nagarjunikonda  hill & on the banks  of the  reservoir.  Replicas of  14 other  structure were made. Protecting the archaeological  heritage  is not just the responsibility  of the Archaeological Survey of the Government. It is essential  for ordinary  people to realize  the importance of protecting & cherishing these fragile links to the past.

Palaeontology  :     It’s the study of the remains  of dead organisms  over enormous  spans of time .  It’s a actually  molecular biology  & DNA studies have been use to understand  homind   evolution.

 Bones provide a great deal of  information.  The distribution of  faunal  remains  (animal bones)  at a site can indicate which areas were used for butchering,  cooking, eating, bone tool making  and refuse dumping. Faunal analysis gives information about  the animals people haunted  & domesticated.  Faunal remains  can lead to inferences  about aspects  of environment such as a climate, vegetation & the season during which a site was occupied.

Marine fish bones  & shells  at Inamgaon  at least 200 km from the sea  shows that its inhabitants had contacts with coastal communities.  The dental structure of humans is connected to subsistence patterns & methods  of   food preparation.  Trace element  analysis  of human  bones  & scanning  electron microscoping (SEM)  analysis of tooth enamel  can help  identify the kind of food people ate & whether  they suffered from nutritional  deficiencies.   

Palaeo-pathelogy   :   It’s the study of  diseases ancient people  suffered from by analysing  their bones.  Diseases such as  arthritis & tuberculosis leave their mark on bones. Human bones are also examined  to make inferences about  population size, density, mortality,  fertility & life expectancy.

Palaeo-botanical   :   It’s a studies  including the analysis of pollen and  other minute plant remains, seeds, charcoal, sediments & geological strata. Environmental archaeology, which aims & understanding how societies adopted to their environment & how they used  environmental  resources, involves the collaboration of scientists  & archaeologists.

Archaeological Dating Process

Two type of dating process like

Relative Dating

Absolute Dating

Relative Dating   :   This  techniques which identify the order in which sites or artefacts were  used in a sequence from earliest to latest.

Absolute  Dating  (or chronometric)  : This  dating techniques that try to establish an exact or approximate calendar date for a site or artefact.

Historical Dating  : Any written or  artistic evidence  which can provide precise dates & the original language  can be decoded. For example, coins, seals,  inscriptions and clay tablets were used by any civilizations

Relative dating

Geoarchaeological dating  : some cases  archaeologist borrowed  Geo science technique. Because environment, soil, water & other resources are helped to identified evidence like bones, structure, pollen etc. This dating proses help to know how was the climate, soil- this time.

Obsidian hydration :   This is one  of the cheaper laboratory dating techniques. Obsidian is a volcanic glass that can be worked  to provide razor-sharp cutting edges. As soon as a piece of obsidian is broken it begins to absorb water from the atmosphere at a known rate (in much the same way as a stick of rock which goes soft on the outside). By  measuring how far water has penetrated into  the obsidian (hydration) on one site a relative date can be estimated compared to other sites.

Chemical dating of bones :  Buried bones absorb fluorine and uranium from water in the ground whilst their nitrogen content declines as collagen in the bones  decays. These processes occur at a uniform rate so it is possible to establish the relative age of different bones by measuring the proportions of these chemicals.

Dendrochronology (tree ring dating) : This is the most accurate chronometric dating  method. Every year trees produce a ring of  new wood under their bark. The rings are wider in good conditions than in poor ones and can provide a record of local climatic variation. Trees in the same area will have similar ring patterns which means wood from  different periods can be matched in overlapping sequences. These are tied to historical dates by  modern trees.

Thermoluminescence (TL) :  Radioactive decay in the quartz crystals found in clay leads to a build up of electric charge at a known rate. The electrical charge is released as light when the crystals are heated. When pottery is heated in a laboratory the energy in the flash of light is measured and used to calculate the time since it was fired. The technique can be used for materials such as glass and burnt flint or stone for periods from  the present to around 400,000 years ago.

Potassium–argon dating  :   As potassium in rock crystals decays it produces argon gas at a known rate. Measuring  the amounts and ratios in a laboratory provides  a date at which the crystal was formed. It has been used in volcanic regions to date layers of rock which sandwich human remains. For instance, at Koobi Fora in East Africa early  hominid remains.

Radio carbon dating :   Discovered  by  an American chemist named Willard Libby in 1949, radiocarbon dating is  today  a very widely used dating method in archaeology. The atmosphere contains a fixed ratio of carbon-12 (ordinary carbon) & carbon-14 (radioactive isotope of carbon). Plants absorb C-14 in the atmosphere through their intake of carbon di  oxide during the process of photosynthesis. C-14 passes into animals as they feed off plants or other animals. C-14 stops when the plant or animal dies.

By measuring the amount of c-14 remaining in the organism, scientists can figure out when it died like how old  it is. The radiocarbon method  can be used to date various  organic materials such as wood, charcoal, bone and shell. Scientists have know for some time that the amount of radiocarbon produced in the atmosphere has not been constant over time.

•       1960 the traditional cultural history  perspectives were challenged by the emergence of what came to be known as New Archaeology & school known as ‘processualism’. This school tried understand cultures & cultural processes holistically, especially in relation to ecology, human adaptation, & the interaction of different kinds of variables. It  advocated a problem-oriented approach, emphasizing the importantce of explanation, generalization, & theory building.

•        Post-processual school  of archaeology-    Post-processualists question the possibility of objective knowledge about the past. They point out that material  culture can be used by social groups not only to reflect but also to  disguise existing social relations.

•         Archaeometry  refers to a range of scientific techniques & analyses involving the use of measurement to analyse ancient objects or materials. The chemical analysis of pottery & metal  artefacts  can give clues about how they were produced.  Chemical composition  of metal  artefacts & ores can help identify the source of ores. Chemical analysis of soil can be used to determine the degree of human presence & activity at a site. The chalcolithic site of Inamgaon in Maharashtra, the soil in the courtyards had higher nitrogen content than that  inside  the house.

•         Gundiyali & Lodai are two pottery manufacturing villages in Kutch, Gujarat.

Dating      Method	Use        on
Carbon -14	Organic materials like charcoal, wood,  seeds,  plant remains, bones
Optically stimulated for  infared stimulated luminescence	Any sediment which is belived  to have been undistributed after its burial under other sediments.
Dendrochonology(Tree-ring dating)	Timber in areas outside the tropics.
Amino acide analysis	Bone
Palaeomagnetic   dating	Magnetized   sediments, volcanic lava, clay baked to 650-700 degree C
Fission Track	Certain kinds of rocks & minerals, obsidian, glass,mica etc
Uranium series	Rocks rich in  calcium carbonate
Electron spin  resonance	Bone, shell
Potassium-Argon	Volcanic rocks  older than about 100,000 years
Thermoluminescence	Inorganic material that has been  heated   rapidly to  500 degree C or above  like pottery, terracotta, burnt flint