Gandhara grave culture

The Gandhara grave culture of present-day Pakistan is known by its "protohistoric graves", which were spread mainly in the middle Swat River valley and named the Swat Protohistoric Graveyards Complex, dated in that region to c. 1200–800 BCE.

Quotes

• Tusa (1977) believes that "the so-called 'grave culture' is not in fact due to a sudden interruption in the life of the valley but to an appreciable, substantial change perhaps due to new contributions that are nevertheless in line with the cultural traditions of the previous period." He echoes objections that have been raised so many times by South Asian archaeologists: "The existence of contributions from the outside, for too long used to justify cultural change in the sub-Himalayan area, has in my opinion been exaggerated even though it could conceivably have been a factor in cultural change without being the only one" (690). As far as he is concerned, "to attribute a historical value to . . . the slender links with northwestern Iran and northern Afghanistan . . . is a mistake "because . . ." it could well be the spread of particular objects and, as such, objects that could circulate more easily quite apart from any real contacts" (691-692).
  • Tusa, Sebastiano. 1977. "The Swat Valley in the 2nd and 1st Millennia BC: A Question of Marginality." South Asian Archaeology 6:675-695. quoted in in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press.