Mehrgarh

Mehrgarh (Urdu, Balochi: مہرگڑھ) is a Neolithic archaeological site (dated circa 7000 BCE – circa 2500/2000 BCE) situated on the Kacchi Plain of Balochistan in modern-day Pakistan. It is located near the Bolan Pass, to the west of the Indus River and between the modern-day Pakistani cities of Quetta, Kalat and Sibi. The site was discovered in 1974 by the French Archaeological Mission led by the French archaeologists Jean-François Jarrige and his wife, Catherine Jarrige.

Quotes

• Recent excavations at Mehrgarh in Baluchistan have changed the situation,“making plausible the hypothesis that the domestication of plants and animals and the rise of civilization in the Indus Valley was an indigenous cultural process.” The archeological record at the site “begins with the earliest settling by farming peoples, and goes through the middle of the third millennium”; that is, it covers continuously the development from the prepottery Neolithic to the phase immediately preceding the appearance of the Indus Valley cities. A number of scholars feel that this material invalidates the hypothesis of Mesopotamian diffusion. “The new excavations have conclusively disproved the assumption of a sudden appearance of the Indus civilization without any traces of previous development. On the contrary, they have demonstrated that the Harappan civilization should be regarded as a legitimate phase of the evolution of developed village cultures. Urbanization was … prepared by the previous stage of the inner development of village cultures which had reached a fairly high level of development.” Thus the Indus civilization, like those of Mesopotamia and Egypt, was “the result of deep cultural processes originating in the Neolithic,” and was “deeply rooted in local traditions.” In that case, input from outside seems unnecessary; supposedly the Indus culture was just about to sprout into urbanism at the same time lower Mesopotamia was. They happened side by side, at the same time, with no stimulus of one upon the other. Their village geographies, that is, happened to come to maturity at the same time. With the earlier dates for Indus Valley urbanization, and the antecedent preparatory stages shown at Mehrgarh, it now appears that “the growth of urbanization in India took place at virtually the same time as Sumer.”
  • Thomas C. Mcevilley - The Shape of Ancient Thought_ Comparative Studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies (2001, Allworth Press) chapter 10 . quoting Shaffer, “The Indo-Aryan Invasions,” p. 82.and Jean-Francois Jarrige, “Excavations at Mehrgarh: Their Significance for Understanding the Background of the Harappan Civilization,” in Possehl, ed., Harappan Civilization, p. 81-83.and Bongard-Levin, Ancient Indian Civilization, p. 27.and Chakrabarti, “‘Long Barrel Cylinder’ Beads,” pp. 265–270.

• Some other new sites offer partial confirmation of the Mehrgarh implications. In terms of the traditional civilizational requisite of monumentality, for example, at Rehman Dheri “monumental public architecture came in vogue much before the emergence of the mature Indus-Saraswati Civilization, the latter only elaborated the efforts of the former.” “There was a regular fortified settlement with massive mud-brick structures and houses of the Kot Dijians at Harappa [that] long preceded the mature phases of the Indus Saraswati Civilization.”
  • Thomas C. Mcevilley - The Shape of Ancient Thought_ Comparative Studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies (2001, Allworth Press) chapter 10 . quoting Gupta, Indus-Saraswati Civilization, p. 37-46.

• The Mehrgarh data raise serious questions about diffusion as an all-encompassing explanation for major South Asian cultural developments.
  • Jim G. Shaffer and Diana A. Lichtenstein, “The Concepts of ‘Cultural Tradition’ and ‘Paleoethnicity’ in South Asian Archeology,” in George Erdosy ed., Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia, p. 131. quoted in Thomas C. Mcevilley - The Shape of Ancient Thought

• Besides, archaeology has a tendency to suddenly unearth material that completely subverts previously held assumptions. Mehrgarh is the prime example. Prior to its discovery, scholars were inclined to believe that agriculture and urbanization were both diffused from West Asia. Mehrgarh, an agricultural settlement dating back to the seventh millennium B.C.E., dramatically dem- onstrated that "die theoretical models used to interpret the prehistory of Southern Asia must be completely reappraised" (Jarrige and Meadow 1980, 133).
  • in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press. chapter 9

• Most dramatically, Mehrgarh threw the date for evidence of agriculture back two entire millennia. This clearly underscores the danger of establishing theories predicated on argumentum ex silentio in the archaeological record. Mehrgarh also undermined previous assumptions that urbanization and agriculture were diffused from the centers of civilization to the west of the subcontinent. The site also set the stage for the indigenous development of complex cultural patterns that culminated in the great cities of the Indus Valley: "The origins of the Indus urban society can be traced to the socio-economic interaction systems and settlement patterns of the indigenous village cultures of die alluvial plain and piedmont. More importantly, the factors leading to this transformation ap- pear to be autochthonous and not derived from direct stimulus or diffusion from West or Central Asia" (Kenoyer 199lb, 11).
  • in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press. chapter 9

• However, Jarrige (1989), the excavator of the site, is less inclined to see these finds as evidence of population movements: "The evidence of a formative period of the cultural complex of Mehrgarh VIII/ Sibri at Nausharo . . . cannot be interpreted in term of invasions from the north-west to the south-east but within the framework of fruitful intercourse at a time when Mohenjo- daro is still an active city" (67).
  • in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press. chapter 10

• Is it not time to rethink about the entire issue? Could the chalcolithic people of Mehrgarh [seventh millennium B.C.E.], who in the course of time evolved into Bronze Age Harappans, themselves have been the Indo-Aryans? These chalcolithic people had relationship with areas now compromising northern Afghanistan, northeastern Iran and even southern part of central Asia—which area may have been the habitat of the Aryans prior to the composition of the Rgveda. (287)
  • B.B. Lal in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press.

• The excavations at Mehrgarh (Jansen et al. 1991; Jarrige et al. 1995) near Sibri, Pakistan, do demonstrate an indigenous development of agricultural food production by people living there as early as the seventh millennium BC. As a cultural occupation, Mehrgarh Period IA dates to the seventh millennium BC period; because of the essential cultural complexity in that occupation stratum, some scholars posit an even earlier period for the cultural innovation there of achieving plant and animal domesticates. Most important was the identification at Mehrgarh of wild representatives of domesticable plants and animals, indicating their use by groups in the area. Mehrgarh’s seventh millennium BC pop- ulation had a plant economy using domesticated wheats and barley, with a high percent (90 percent) of naked six-row barley, a variety which occurs only in a post-domestication context.
  • Jim Shaffer. South Asian archaeology and the myth of Indo-Aryan invasions in : Bryant, E. F., & Patton, L. L. (2005). The Indo-Aryan controversy : evidence and inference in Indian history. Routledge

• The small size of some goats, a post-domestication characteristic, and intentional use of immature goats within human burials suggests that goats were being herded. By Mehrgarh Period IB, c.6000–5500 BC, fully domesticated sheep, goats, and cattle were the major animals being exploited. In Mehrgarh Period II, 5500–4500 BC, nearly all the faunal remains indicate domestication. After Mehrgarh Period II, some 60 percent of the animals consumed were domesticated cattle. This emphasis on domesticated cattle, though variable, persisted into the second millennium BC, a rare pattern in the ancient Old World where domesticated sheep/goats become the most exploited fauna. Moreover, during the Harappan period, after 2500 BC, groups of specialized cattle pastoralists have been identified in the prehistoric record. More recently, and importantly, cattle mtDNA studies indicate that South Asia is a primary world area where at least one species of cattle, Bos indicus, was domesticated.
  • Jim Shaffer. South Asian archaeology and the myth of Indo-Aryan invasions in : Bryant, E. F., & Patton, L. L. (2005). The Indo-Aryan controversy : evidence and inference in Indian history. Routledge

• Other important aspects of the Mehrgarh occupation sequence indicate that humans were emphasizing surplus resource production, establishing a precocious and varied craft industry and making use of early “public” architectural units. The crucial point is that the site of Mehrgarh establishes food production technology as an indigenous South Asian, Indus Valley cultural phenomenon. No intruding/ invasive/migrating population coming into the area can be referred to as the source of such cultural innovation, as suggested by Renfrew (1987). The current data (Shaffer 1992) delineates a South Asian prehistoric cultural complexity and urbanization process that develops over a long chronology based on indigenous, but not isolated, cultural innovations. The available archaeological record does not support the explanatory paradigm of a culturally superior, intrusive/invasive Indo- Aryan people as being responsible for the cultural accomplishments documented archaeologically for prehistoric South Asia.
  • Jim Shaffer. South Asian archaeology and the myth of Indo-Aryan invasions in : Bryant, E. F., & Patton, L. L. (2005). The Indo-Aryan controversy : evidence and inference in Indian history. Routledge

• The Mehrgarh excavations ... changed our understanding about the origins of South Asian food production. Prior to 1980, food production in South Asia was thought to be a Western, intrusive cultural invention. This interpretation is not now acceptable.
  • Migration, philology and South Asian archaeology by Jim G. Schaffer & Diane A. Lichtenstein

• Shortly after Period II at Mehrgarh , domesticated cattle represented 60% of the animals consumed... This is a rare pattern in the ancient Old World where domesticated sheep/goats were the domesticated animals emphasized most. Furthermore, by the Harappan period, after 2500 BCE, specialized cattle pastorialists have been identified... Equally important are recent cattle mtDNA studies indicating that South Asia is one of two regions where cattle were domesticated.
  • Migration, philology and South Asian archaeology by Jim G. Schaffer & Diane A. Lichtenstein

• The main issue here is that the Mehrgarh site demonstrates that food production was an indigenous South Asian phenomenon. Such a cultural invention cannot be attributed to a single area... This evidence delineates a long chronological period for the cultural complexity of the area. The data thus support interpretation of the prehistoric urbanization and complex social organization in South Asia as based on indigenous, but not isolated, cultural developments. A diffusion or migration of a culturally complex ‘Indo-Aryan‘ people into South Asia is not described by the archaeological record.
  • Migration, philology and South Asian archaeology by Jim G. Schaffer & Diane A. Lichtenstein