16 Southwest Asian, African and East Asian Background to the Neolithic Cultures of the Indian Subcontinent

Ravi Korisettar

Objectives

The main objective of this module is to introduce the students the manner in which Neolithic research across the world has enriched our understand of the Neolithic revolution first coined by V. Gordon Child and how over the years the intensive research has enabled archaeologists trace the rise of Neolithic way of life independently in the different regions of the world and they are related to each other. Under the role of diffusion and movement of language groups, identification of native and exotic food crops and domestic animal is shaping the regional characteristics of the Neolithic cultures is given emphasis.

2. Introduction

Development of Neolithic cultures in the Indian subcontinent can be best understood against the background of early developments in the two distinct geographical regions of Southwest Asia (the fertile crescent in particular) and East Asia. During the last two or three decades the archaeology of the Neolithic cultures in these regions has shed new light on the role of climate, environment and demography in the rise and development of agricultural way of life. To date the best documentation of transition from hunting gathering to sedentary agricultural way of life, both plants and animals, has been carried out through excavation and multidisciplinary analysis. The material culture of the Neolithic is marked by the development of new stone tool technology (polished stone tools) and systematic production of earthenware pottery. The archaeology of the Neolithic in these regions is increasingly important in view of the fact that many varieties of cultivars documented from Indian Neolithic sites were introduced either from Southwest Asia, Africa or East Asia, through diffusion that also was accompanied by expansion and convergence of language families in the subcontinent. Therefore this chapter provides a brief history of Neolithisation in the primary areas and its impact on the subcontinent.

The Neolithic phase is best defined as the half way house between the hunting gathering simple societies and the emergence of first civilizations of the world. The following quote from Jacques Cauvin aptly sums up the importance of the Neolithic way of life that paved way for rapid changes in the life ways of human societies ushering in great discoveries and inventions and successful exploitation of natural resources and the rise of political economies across the world.

Among the great turning points in human history, the one called the Neolithic Revolution is one of the most critical; it concerned the beginning of the first manipulation of the natural environment by our species, and it lies directly at the origins of our present power. The analysis of this metamorphosis, its circumstances and its causes, is therefore an indispensable first stage for those who are interested in civilization began. This event occurred first in the Near East, before radiating directly to other regions, or giving place to later imitations elsewhere.

The period between 12000 and 4000 years ago witnessed the transition of prehistoric hunter-gatherers into the village based first farmers and the first herders at different point of time in different geographical regions of the world. It is also very aptly said that this transformation was not limited to only subsistence production and the modification of landscape but also witnessed changes from the most material to the most symbolic – habitat, technology, demography, social organization, settlement and the use of space, and artistic and religious expressions were equally involved.

The radiocarbon chronology of southwest Asian and East Asian Neolithic sites has rendered in proper delineation of rapid development of socio-economic changes. In fact on the time-scales developed by archaeologists suggests that very little time separates the first village farming communities from the first urban civilizations, and them from the first industrial civilizations. The radiocarbon chronology has also clearly established the fact that it was in Southwest Asia neolithisation first arose, without any external influence and all other centres of Neolithic cultures, are later and that diffusion and migration played important role in the spread of Neolithisation across the world. Scholars working on Neolithic cultures in the different regions of the world state that ‘episodes of human movement occurred from time to time… as different populations developed or adopted agriculture and them spread farming, languages, and genes, in some cases across vast distances’. Students of archaeology, or Indian culture, are now introduced to new terminologies such as agriculture, domestication and cultivation .

The term agriculture refers to ‘all activities involving cultivation of plants’. Cultivation is defined as a conscious activity and refers to it as ‘an essential component of any agricultural system, defines a sequence of activity whereby crops are planted (as a seed or vegetative crop), protected, harvested, then deliberately sown again, usually in the prepared plot of ground, in the following growing season’. Domestication also refers to conscious activity which leads to identifying plant remains ‘that show recognizable indications of morphological change away from the wild phenotype, attributable to human interference in the phenotype through cultivation’.

In case of animals ‘the concept of domestication is invoked when there are relatively undisputed signs of human control and breeding of a species. Such signs can normally be claimed in situations where animals were transported out of their homeland regions – for instance, goats and sheep from Southwest Asia into Europe and Africa, pigs and chicken from China and Southeast Asia into the Pacific… Animal domestication may have led in certain regions to great increase in productive capacity and hence played a major role… in the kinds of agricultural population growth and geographical dispersal…’.

For archaeologists pottery, which is hallmark of the Neolithic culture across the globe, has a role of major importance (see module on Ceramic technology) since ceramic styles, which can be very diversified on a regional pattern, came to serve as the means of identifying cultures during the Holocene.

3. Changing Concept of Neolithic

In the early nineteenth century the word ‘Neolithic’ was used by Danish prehistorians to denote the technological progress of man when he started using polished stone axes and manufactured pottery. Subsequently, evolutionist anthropologists like Edward Taylor identified several stages like Savagery, Barbarism and Civilization to denote the progress of mankind. It was during the second stage (Barbarism) that man invented the art of pottery making and domestication of animals. But the true significance of this word was correctly realised by Gordon Childe. He traced the spread of the Neolithic way of life from western Asia and Egypt across Anatolia and then to Europe in a 3000 year span. After the second world war, this hypothesis was tested and buttressed by intensive field work in the Fertile Crescent.

Now it has been appreciated that it was during the Neolithic stage that man discovered the means to control his environment. At this stage man had tamed nature to the extent that he could multiply his food supply by artificial means, by increasing the productivity of wild plants and by controlling the movement and breeding of wild animals. Thus the Neolithic stage is associated with the emergence of agriculture and domestication of animals. Nomadic pastoralism appears to have played a major role in the diffusion of Neolithic culture.

It has long been recognised that the origins of agriculture, upon which the first settlement depends must lie in Southwest Asia since the natural habitat of wild grains of wheat and barley was in this geographical area. This also was the habitat of most important domestic animals like sheep and goat. It is generally believed that this wheat/barley – sheep/goat complex developed in this zone and spread quickly throughout from the Levant to Afghanistan. As regards the circumstances under which the first domestication and cultivation took place several theories/models have been proposed. Gordon Childe proposed the enforced propinquity theory that was a direct result of post-Pleistocene desiccation but this hypothesis is not substantiated by modern researches. As for the probable causes of the first domestication of food plants and animals, changing climate during the early Holocene, technical advancement of early Neolithic communities to a level where they could exploit environment, territorial realism, and the supposedly rapid increase in the population has been suggested but none of them in itself is capable of explaining this complex phenomenon. What needs particular emphasis is the fact that domestication was a process which took considerable time and domestication of each type of domesticable animals and plant species would have taken place in different ecological niches at different times.

There is as yet no unanimity among scholars as regards the explanation for why did the transformation from hunting gathering to agriculture occur in the first place. Most of the explanations or theories pertaining to the origins of agriculture are centred on findings from either Southwest Asia or Mesoamerica or China. These theories cames to e propounded since the early part of the 20th century. William Perry attributed this development to affluence.

The development of agriculture is governed by deliberate planting and a regular annual cycle of cultivation. This appears to coincide with the post glacial onset of warm and rainy climates in the regions where steps for food production were initiated.

4. Major Regional Neolithic Cultures

On the basis of archaeological and archaeobotanical record of early agricultural societies several major regions of independent agricultural origins, directly from hunter-gatherer background have been identified by Peter Bellwood. They are as follows.

1. Southwest Asia – Fertile Crescent, earliest evidence of domestication of wheat, barley, pea, lentil, sheep, goat, pig and cattle.
2. East Asia – China – Yangzi and Yellow river basins, earliest evidence of domestication of rice, foxtail millet, varieties of tubers, fruits, pig and poultry.
3. New Guinea – interior highlands, earliest evidence of taro, sugar cane, pandanus, banana, no evidence of domestication of animals.
4. Mesoamerica – Mexico and northern South America, domestication of maize, beans, squashes, manioc, many fruits and tubers, with minor domestic animals.
5. USA – eastern woodlands. Squashes and various seed-bearing plants, no evidence of animal domestication.
6. Central and West Africa, yams and African rice.
7. Southern India – Mid- Deccan plains, with evidence of cultivation of local millets and tubers.

5.  Discoveries in Southwest Asia, Northern Africa, China and Southeast Asia

These are the regions with wild distribution of plants and animals that were ultimately domesticated by transitional communities, and other regions agricultural life arose as a result of external stimulus, through the process of diffusion and movement or expansion of agricultural communities. These are the regions which are relevant to understanding the spread of a variety of cereals, millets and pulses into the Indian subcontinent. Though the implication of this are too many but let us restrict our discussion to their introduction into the subcontinent to be able to evaluate local agricultural developments and diffusion of crops in and out of the subcontinent during the course of the Neolithic.

Geographically the Indian subcontinent is placed between the countries of western Asia and those of East Asia. The crops involved in the Neolithic economies of the Indian subcontinent fall into four groups in terms of ultimate origin: Southwest Asia, Africa, East Asia and native South Asian.

Therefore, in order to assess the Indian achievements in the global context, it would be worthwhile to have background knowledge of the recent evidences on this subject in these contiguous land-masses.

Southwest Asia

Southwest Asia has the largest area of Mediterranean climate (generally hot dry summers and cold wet winters) with greatest rang of altitudinal variation. This region has the largest number of large seeded annual wild cereals and pod-bearing legume species. Legumes include broad beans, peas, chick peas and lentils). Wheats, emmer (a hulled tetraploid) and einkorn (a hulled diploid) and including barley and rye, were the first to be widely cultivated in the Fertile Crescent/ Levant (Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Israel and Iraq) and later in Anatolia.

Wheat and rye were domesticated in the Levant by about 8500 BC, barley cultivation also coincides with this time period. Wild barely has a widespread distribution across Southwest Asia, extending up to Anatolia, North Africa and Afghanistan. The legumes pea, lentil and chickpea are all of Levantine origin. They were first domesticated after 8000 BC.

In Southwest Asia the archaeological record reveals that courses towards agriculture begins around 19000 BC, the time of Last Glacial Maximum (see module on Quaternary period), i.e. peak of the last glacial period. The well known site of this time period is Ohalo II, on the coast of Galilee Sea. It has been documented that people at this site exploited wild emmer, barley, pistachio, grape and live.

After 15000 BC the Geometric Kebaran culture, a microlithic producing community live in caves and small campsites. The descendants of the Kebaran culture have been identified as Natufians, dated to around 12500 BC. The Natufians culture witnessed increase in the human population, especially before the commencement of the Younger Dryas cold phase (11,000 to 9500 BC). There is evidence of exploitation of wild barely. Some Natufian sites have preserved evidence for exploitation of wild barley, einkorn and lentils and after the end of the Younger Dryas cold phase the archaeological record reveals widespread appearance of domesticated plants.

The Natufian culture is followed by Khiamian culture, they flourished between 10,000 and 9500 BC but precedes the Pre Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) or Sultanian, Aswadian and Mureybetian cultures. The first signs of agricultural economy appear in these cultures. The PPNA is followed by Pre Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB), well documented from the site of Jericho in Israel. This phase, having a long time span from8600 to 7000 BC, witnessed cultural efflorescence as well as geographical unity for the whole of the Levant. This was characterised by a developed stone tool technology, typology, rectangular architecture, animal herding and cultivation. PPNB developed in three stages, the early PPNB (8600-8200 BC), the middle PPNB (8200-7500 BC) and late PPNB (7500-7000 BC). These three stages witnessed gradual efflorescence and spatial expansion of agricultural way of life beyond the Levant into the middle Euphratus, the Taurus, Palestine and southern Anatolia.

The economic record of the Pre Pottery Neolithic period as a whole indicate increasing reliance on domesticated crops, matched by an appearance of the first domesticated animals, especially sheep and goat. By 7000 BC pottery tradition becomes widespread in this broad region and beyond.

Among the important sites where excavations have been conducted in recent years mention may be made of Abu Hureyra in north Syria, Ain Ghazal on the outskirts of Amman , Gilgal in the Jordan Valley, Grittile in southeastern Turkey, Umm Dabaghiyah in Iraq and Ganj Dareh in the Kangavar region of the Central Zagros Highlands.

The excavations at Abu Hureyra show that cereal cultivation started as early as the Mesolithic (called Epipalaeolithic) stage dated to 8500 BC. After several centuries of occupation the Mesolithic settlement was deserted and it was re-occupied during the archaic (aceramic) Neolithic stage dated to c. 7500 BC. At this stage the settlement at Abu Hureyra grew and became the largest of all the archaic settlements in Levant. The multi-roomed rectilinear houses made of mud-bricks were coloured black and occasionally had red schematic motifs. Agriculture was widely practised and the economy rested on the cultivation of cereals and pulses. Whereas it is only probable that the Mesolithic predecessors cultivated einkorn wheat, barley and lentils, it is certain that the archaic Neolithic villages definitely cultivated these grains alongwith a new variety of wheat — emmer. Other noteworthy features are that Abu Hureyra became a centre of trade at this stage. It regularly received obsidian from several sources in Turkey, along with jadeite , serpentine, agate and malachite. Soapstone came from the Zagros mountains, turquoise from the Sinai and cowrie shells from the Red Sea. This settlement continued to flourish through the developed Neolithic (ceramic Neolithic) phase in the sixth millennium B.C. and it was eventually abandoned around 5500 BC.

Ain Ghazal, located in Wadi Jarqa on the outskirts of Amman, was excavated for three seasons during 1982 – 85 and it brought forth nine major constructional phases which in turn gave a culture- sequence of pre-pottery Neolithic B (dated to 7250 – 6200 BC), pre-pottery Neolithic C and the Yarmoukian culture. The importance of Ain Ghazal lies in the fact that it is one of the largest early Neolithic towns, three times the size of Jericho and exceeded in size only by Tell Abu Hureyra. Among the outstanding discoveries of pre-pottery Neolithic B phase of Ain Ghazal are two cache of plaster human statuary comprising full bodied standing male and female figures and smaller busts between 30 and 45 cm in height. They suggest a close cultural link with contemporary Jericho which also produced similar statues decorated in much the same way. The settlement of pre-pottery Neolithic B phase came to an abrupt end shortly after 6200 BC and it was reoccupied by a new group of people with new forms of artefacts and cultural practices (called pre-pottery Neolithic C). They flourished between 6200 and 5800 BC.

Gilgal in the lower Jordon Valley was excavated during 1974-78 and it has yielded relics of pre-pottery Neolithic A (pre-pottery Neolithic A ) stage datable to c. 8200 – 7500 BC. The inhabitants lived in semi-oval structures made of small sized stones and floors coated with lime and flat stones.

Grittile is situated on the west bank of the Euphrates in south-east Turkey and was under excavation during 1981-84. This site was inhabited around 7000 BC during the pre-pottery Neolithic B phase. The inhabitants lived in buildings comprising a series of small rooms made of mud bricks and cultivated emmer wheat, lentils and bitter vetch. The domestic animals include sheep and goats (over 40% of the samples) pigs and cattle (though less common).

Ganj Dareh tepe., located in a small upland valley in the Kangavar region of Iran was intermittently excavated in 1965, 1967, 1969 , 1971 and 1974. These excavations show that initially it was a small village in the mid-eighth millennium BC which was succeeded by a larger village of mud-walled houses. Cultivated barley was present from the very beginning and crude ceramics appeared in level D (c. 6600 BC). In the north central Jazira of northern Iraq excavation at Umm Dabaghiyah conducted during 1971-74 have brought to light a hitherto unknown culture which can be placed between the Jarmo and Hassuna cultures. The recent radio carbon dates from Tepe Asiab located on the eastern flanks of the Zagros mountains and excavated by Braidwood in the early 1960s, demonstrate that this settlement flourished between 7800 and 6750 BC and the osteological evidence suggests that domestic goat was present at this site at such an early date.

Northern Africa

Further south of the Southwest Asia lies the largest continent of Africa. It is generally opined that the Levant forms an extension of northern Africa, particularly y those archaeologists dealing with the expansion of human populations out of Africa. However in the context of Neolithic developments the movement of peoples and expansion of agricultural origins northern Africa yet has a secondary place. Northern Africa is broadly divisible into Saharan and Subsaharan Africa, the regions lying north of Equatorial rainforests of Africa. Although early theories of agricultural origins or the Neolithic Revolution was on centred on Egypt’s Nile valley, ironically the evidence of the single centre of Neolithic origins has not stood the test of time. Both Sahara and Subsahara regions have received adequate research focus on the Neolithic transitions which took place after 2000 BC. Geophytological (the study o distribution of plant communities) documentation in these regions has established the presence of a variety of summer rainfall cereals including African rice and millets. The most significant crops are African rice (Oryja globerrima), pearl millet (Pennisetum glauceum), sorghum (Sorghum bicolour) and finger millet (Eleusine caracana). The Subsaharan early agriculture was based on this package of crops, while in northern Africa (Egypt and the Sudan) it was governed by the introduction of Southwest Asian cereals and legumes . It is to be noted the region south of the Equator has drawn a blank in respect of evidence for early Neolithic transitions. However, some of the Egyptian Terminal Pleistocene sites have shown up evidence of exploitation of wild sorghum millet. Many of these crops came to be introduced into the Indian subcontinent during the third and second millennium BC.

A variety of wild millet grains and impressions in pottery occur in many sites across the Sahara about 8500 BC and later. Although evidence for actual cultivation is not clear people were harviesting morphologically wild sorghum and pearl millet. There is suggestion that cultivation occurred in Sudan around 5000 BC. North Africa has evidence for native cattle and possibly they were domesticated early in the Neolithic. By 6000 BC sheep and goat were already part of the Neolithic in Egypt and Sudan, which had a Southwest Asian source. In Sudan, the evidence for domesticated cattle, sheep and goat dates to around 5000 BC. People who kept these animals moved southwards into the Subsahara by about 2500 BC. They practiced animal herding along with hunting-gathering, made pottery, but as yet there is no evidence of cultivation around this time.

East Asia (China)

Recent years have witnessed significant progress in prehistoric researches in China, particularly in the Yellow river valley and the middle and lower riches of the Yangzi river. Here the earliest Neolithic cultures are represented by the Pei-li-gang, Cishan and Da-di-wan cultures. They are followed by the Yang – Shao culture and its successor, the Lung-shan culture, both based on hoe agriculture and distributed mainly in North China. All these cultures, dated between 6000 and 5000 BC, were based on agricultural economy which comprised foxtail millet (Setaria italica), broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum) and rice (Oryza sativa). Agriculture was supplemented by animal husbandry. Bones of pigs, dogs and poultry as well as a few ox bones, have been recovered from the earlier Neolithic cultures in north China; and later in the Lung-shan culture, sheep, goats and horses appeared. These researches show that China is one of the centres of origin of agriculture in the world and the development of prehistoric agriculture in East Asia, at least, is indissolubly linked to the contributions of China. In recent years, several hundred Neolithic cultural sites have been excavated over most of China . Numerous Neolithic sites in North China, such as Da-di-wan in eastern Kansu Province, Peiligan in western Henan Province, and Cishan in southern Hebei Province, have on record that the appearance of dry farming dates back to 5000 – 6000 BC, while several Neolithic sites along the Hangzhou estuary such as He-mo-du on the southern bank and Luo-jia-jiao in the southeastern Yangzi delta have recorded that the origin of domesticated paddy rice in South China is as early as 5000 BC. At the moment it seems that annual millets (especially foxtail millet, Setaria italica) were cultivated in the Yellow River Basin by perhaps 6000 BC and the annual rice in the lower Yangtze Valley by at least 5000 BC.

The eastern region of China drained by the Yellow and Yangzi rivers and the smaller rivers between them (the Hui for example) provided the fertile stretches of arable land and wild progenitors of the early domesticates of the Chinese Neolithic. Evidently this region witnessed the early development of agricultural origins. This is a monsoon rainfall area covered fertile tracts of loessic soil. There is no evidence for primary agricultural development in any other regions of China outside the regions of middle reaches of the Yellow and Yangzi rivers and the Hui basin. Early development of agriculture in this region is comparable to those in Southwest Asia. Large number of early Neolithic sites found distributed in the middle Yellow river basin, the region idea for millet cultivation. Neolithic sites in the middle Yangzi basin are found located on the lake shores associated with floodplains. Early Neolithic sites are dated to around 7000 BC, during which time large agricultural villages came into existence. Unlike in Southwest Asia the first appearance of pottery predates the Neolithic and the oldest pottery is dated to be as old as 9000-1200 BC.

The oldest full Neolithic villages of China, with evidence of agriculture, is dated to about 7000/6500 BC. These villages are found located in the region of distribution of wild rice and foxtail millet. Wild rice (Oryza rufipogan), is progenitor of domesticated rice (Oryza sativa). Millets foxtail millet (Setaria itaica) and drought resistant browntop millet (Panicum miliaceum) are found commonly in the early Neolithic context of China. The Early Neolithic was characterised by the first domestication or rice followed by millets. Rice agriculture became dominant after 7000 BC. Largely represented by the sites of Peligang culture.

The archaeological context of the Yellow river basin points towards an oldest appearance of the Neolithic at about 6500 BC. A good number of sites centred around Cislian and Peiligang are dated 6500 to 5000 BC. These villages were spread over an area of one to two hectares, occasionally covering six hectares as well. Houses were either round or square in shape, with sunken floors interspersed with storage pits. The presence of polished stone axes and serrated stone or shell reaping knives, pestles and mortars attest to the agricultural economy. There is also evidence for domestication of pigs, dogs, and chicken. Extended burial are common. Pttery includes cord-marked , combed, fingertip-impressed, incised varieties. Vessels on tripods are common.

According to Chinese archaeologists the majority of the earliest rice yielding sites known are located in the middle and lower Yangzi basins and this region is considered the heartland of East Asian Agriculture, extending from the Yangzi to the Yellow rivers incorporating the Pengtoushan and Peiligang foci for both rice and millet cultivation.

By 5000 BC these two river basins were well populated with Neolithic settlements. Between 5000 and 3000 BC distinctive Neolithic traditions were widespread further south of the Yangzi basin towards the coast of the South China Sea and the islands.

Yangshao, Dawebku, Beixin, Hemudu, Majabang, Depenkeng are some of the regiona Neolithic traditions of China during this time period.

Southeast Asia

Since Gorman’s excavations of Spirit Cave in 1966, a Hoabinhian site in northwestern Thailand there has been considerable progress in our understanding of the lifeways of the people during the transition from Pelistocne to Holocene. Gorman’s work at this site received careful and meticulous attention regarding sratigraphy and a thorough screening of all faunal and floral remains was done. Excavations at Ban Chiang near Udon Thani in 1974-75 further added significantly to our knowledge of the cultural sequence and absolute chronology of this site.

Similarly field investigations carried out at Gua Cha in Kelantan, Malaysia has thrown significant light on the Hoabinhian and later cultures. The material culture comprising unifacially or bifacially flaked river pebbles of approximate fist size, often with cutting edges all round their peripheries, bone points and spatulae, stone mortars and pounders of various sizes, and flexed burials often dusted with haematite, flourished over a wide area from the equator in Sumatra to beyond the Tropic of Cancer in southern China. Radiocarbon dates from Vietnam indicate that this culture falls between about 10,000 and 5000 BC. Remains of a number of edible but not necessarily cultivated fruits and legumes appeared in the terminal Pleistocene Hoabinhian levels in the Spirit Cave. There is no evidence to suggest cereal cultivation at Gua Cha, either Hoabinhian or Neolithic. The animal bones recovered from the Hoabinhian layers of this site show that pigs (Sus scrofa) and bearded pig (Sus barbatus) were common.

At present the transition from the Hoabinhian to the Neolithic stage in Southeast Asia is imperfectly understood. At Spirit Cave Hoabinhian tools are found to overlap with the Neolithic assemblage of pottery and ground stone adzes. In northern Vietnam there are indications that a similar situation prevailed. So in these northern regions it is quite possible that the Hoabinhian gradually gave way to Neolithic cultures.

There is a suggestion by several archaeologists regarding the extension of the Hoabinhian into northeast Indian humid landforms. It is an ongoing debate.

South Asia (Indian subcontinent)

The vast Indian subcontinent comprising the modern states of Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Bhutan, though not comparable in size with Africa, yet presents a network of regional environments between the great Himalayan range and the Indian Ocean (see module on geographical factors). The regionality of the environments across the subcontinent is governed by the annual circulation of the monsoon system (Southwest and Northeast monsoons) between summer and winter seasons. The regional environments/ecosystems are generated by the latitudinal and longitudinal variation between the southeast coast and the Himalayan foothills as well as the intracontinental topographic and orographic features. Geophytological surveys have identified the presence of region specific rain fed millets, pulses and cereals.

Crops involved in the development of early agriculture in the subcontinent during the Neolithic phases and the Bronze Age Indus Civilization included suits of cereals, millets and pulses of multiple origins, including Southwest Asia, northern Africa, East Asia and South Asia.

The Southwest Asian cereals wheat and legumes were introduced in domesticated form with the possible exception of barley, which could have been domesticated locally in Baluchistan. The African millets and legumes were first introduced into the Indus Civilization through a maritime contact between Mesopotamia and Indus valley. The two main millets from Africa were sorghum and pearl millet, introduced around 2000 BC. The African legumes cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) and hyacinth bean (Lalab purpureus) were introduced during Late Harappan times. Finger millet is another African millet (Ethiopian origin) is known from south Indian Neolithic after 1000 BC (early Iron Age).

Among the East Asian crops the most important is Asian rice (Oryza sativa) a domesticate from Yangzi basin of China. There is no clear evidence of early domestication from local wild rice, long grained (indica) variety, that came to be incorporated into domesticated crop package in the rice economy of the Ganga valley.

Two other millets of external origin found in protohistoric and later prehistoric contexts in India include foxtail millet (Setaria italica) from the Yellow river valley of China and broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum) a Central Asia domesticate.

The domesticated crops native to the subcontinent were the rain fed small millets, pulses and legumes. Black gram and greengram (Vigna sp.) and horsegram are known from the Ghats region and the Deccan plateau. Minor millets belonging to Paspalum and Chenopodium genera and Brachiaria ramose and Setaria verticillata are known to have been locally developed in southern India prior to the introduction from the northern regions, during the time period from 3000 and 1000 BC. Towards the end of this time bracket the crop package including the native and exotic food crops came to support both both rain fed and irrigation agriculture, paving the way for intensive agriculture during the Iron Age.

Based on above considerations five distinctive environmental zones with records of early agricultural development have been identified by Peter Bellwood. They are as follows.

1.The Indus valley and Baluchistan constitute a vast tract of alluvial plains in the northwestern part of the subcontinent. The region presents a continuous record of early agricultural development beginning from the 7th millennium BC, as evidence from Mehrgarh on Bolan in the Kachi Plain and Late Harappan sites in the greater Indus valley. The early phase was characterised by the introduction of Southwest Asian crops, and by the end of Harappan Civilization food crops from East Asia/eastern India (rice), millet species from northern Africa were introduced.

2.The Ganga valley is also well water alluvial plain, also known as the Ganga Plain, receives adequate rain supporting a perennial network of rivers and fertile flood plain soils. The region presents a mixed agricultural economy of Southwest Asian winer crops and summer rice, probably local in origin, but the claim as yet is disputed. As of now the beginnings of Neolithic is dated to around 3000 BC and the possibility of rice cultivation prior to 3000 BC is a distinct possibility.

3.Inland peninsular India extends over a triangular rocky landscape, the Deccan plateau, a triangular area between the Aravalli-Vindhyas in the north and the Tamil Nadu plains in the south. The region as a whole receives monsoon rains with unequal distribution as one progreses from the southwest to central India, and westwards towards Rajasthan. Though the drainage network is described as seasonal, apparently during Mid- Holocene and earlier edequate ground water movement facilitated adequate water resources in the inland regions, as evidenced by the location of hilltop Neolithic settlements away from rivers in southern Deccan region. In recent years archaeobotanical research has documented evidence for adoption of local small millets for agriculture prior to the introduction of Southwest Asian and African millets 3500 and 2000 BC. In the southern Deccan Neolithic cattle pastoralism was dominant.

4.The humid coastal regions of peninsular India and northeastern humid uplands do have records of early agricultural settlements.

5.The Himalayan region has records of early agricultural settlements in the Kashmir valley dating from 2500 BC. The crop package included Southwest Asian and East Asian affinities.In the next couple of modules provide details of regional development of Neolithic cultures in the Indian subcontinent.

Web links

• www.wisegeek.org/what-is-the-neolithic-revolution.htm
• history-world.org/neolithic.htm
• dash.harvard.edu/bitstream /handle/1/12210882…
• ancientneareast.tripod.com/105.htm l
• www.coursehero.com

Bibliography

• Zohary and M. Hopf, 1992. Domestication of Plants in the old world.
• Settar and Ravi Korisettar (Eds.) 2002. Indian Archaeology in Retrospect: Prehistory. ICHR and Manoha Sankalia, H.D. 1974.  Prehistory and Protohistory of India and Pakistan: Pune: Deccan College
• Wadia, Ravi Korisettar and V.S Kale (Eds.) 1995. Quaternary Environments and Geoarchaeology of India. Bangalore: Geological Society of India.
• Settar and R. Korisettar (Eds.). 2002. Indian Archaeology in Retrospect (Vol.1), Prehistory.
• Cauvin. 2007. The Birth of Gods and the Origins of Agriculture.