Part 1 - Growth of nodal points in the Middle Gaṅgā Plains

Our venture of understanding growth of nodal points in the Middle Gaṅgā Plains of the early phase from 6^th century BCE to early centuries of Christian era up to the Gupta times actually evolved round three vital issues. Firstly we chose this broad geo-cultural zone for our study because this was one of the earliest zones in the subcontinent to see human colonization and subsequent settlement growth. The process started from the Palaeolithic times as some sites grew over the entire stretch of the zone. By the early historic times several large and prominent urban centres appeared over this stretch and making it a general urban zone and thus stood as a cultural unit. Secondly, we looked for the specific context for the growth of nodal points in our two select zones located in this broad region. We have enquired into the causative factors working behind the growth of nodal point and the actual evidences available from the sites in the form of structural, antiquarian or botanical remains and information available in the textual sources. Our research focuses on two types of settlement namely the administrative nodal points which were also leading cities of the area and growth of their cultural and religious satellites. Thirdly we have tried to note the changing paradigms of settlement pattern. Dealing with these issues actually brought us to our desired goal that could furnish the picture of an organic growth of settlements that took care of the geographical, economic and social factors behind such growth. Within the social framework demography was the most enigmatic and crucial factor that was the basic changing agent. We may use George Erdosy’s method to understand urban model in our context.

George Erdosy in his paper “Origin of Cities in the Ganga Plain” deals with different facets of urbanisation in the early historic Gaṅgā plain.^[1] He also reviews the earlier views and opinions on urbanisation in general and the urbanisation of the Gaṅgā plain in particular. Limited availability of data was certainly a big problem but a narrow attitude of scholars led them to consider cities were only corollary to the cultural transformation. Cities were looked as sum of traits but how they acquired such traits were hardly ever explained. The older model overlooks the possibility of the city’s participation in the cultural evolution or any change brought by it to the cultural set up or how the cities themselves got transformed through this process. Erdosy made it a point that without explaining city’s role in the cultural process and viewing it as a mixed bag of traits the study of urbanisation remains futile because such trait list is not universally applicable and even if they marked one stage of urbanism that cannot be fitted to other stages owing to the changing nature of settlements. Admitting the problems of older method of studying urbanization he Erdosy put emphasis to the functional role of the cities and their origin rather than their loose features. He also points out that such traits were applied to cities on the basis of literary references which rather present a stereotyped picture of cities representing the mature urban phase and do not help much about their origin and growth.In this regard he thinks a definition of cities based on their functionality must be sought. Cities, according to him were universally great felicitators of social change and their diversity was mainly caused by cultural and physical environments. He thinks it is extremely important to find out the point where a turn towards urbanisation was taken in a pre-industrial society.He delineates two stages in this transformation. Firstly for accessibility and control of strategic resources a differentiation and stratification in simple and egalitarian societies occurred. In the second level these stratified early societies are organised on a territorial basis. From this point the transformation from simple, kin based society to a territorial, stratified society emerges. So in the whole process elements of resource and territoriality proved to be very vital. Erdosy’s model of settlement rationale deals only with the emergence of settlements. When a settlement enters a second level of its transformation either in terms of growth or decay may take the lead from Monica L. Smith’s arguments.

Monica L. Smith in her paper “Archaeology of the South Asian Cities” expressed similar opinion like Erdosy.^[2] As Erdosy opposed the view of seeing cities as by-product of cultural evolution Smith also took cities as self-sufficient units who were powerful agents of social change rather than the byproduct of such change. In her view early historical cities were not necessarily dependent on larger political units or authority. To demonstrate her view she cited the example of West African clustered cities which did not have any larger political authority over them. State’s role was questioned in early European urbanism and even in west Asia the earliest urban centres like Uruk grew in absence of a strong state. She proposed that south Asia can be an area where available archaeological data may be used to examine the relationship of cities with their respective larger political units or what role the city played for its people. By looking at the cities as active population centres free of state–level ties it will be meaningful to understand how the cities grew and sustained. From here, comes the main argument of Smith who primarily views the city as active population centre. Archaeological and modern records represent cities as internally coherent population centres, which can be attractive to its people for building up socio-economic networks that could serve their various purposes. Interestingly, they were maintained at a very micro-level household or neighbourhood ties where people did not require any state authority to help them. It explains why cities grew and existed before and after state. Thus having demonstrated the problems related to the study of urbanisation she supported the modern method of looking at cities in light of archaeological data collected from large sites and their immediate hinterlands.

Erdosy and Smith’s model of beginning of urbanisation provides us with the necessary components for city’s growth. The population is the central issue and then resource accessibility and control created a stratified society which was later organised on territorial basis. So population, resource and resultant social stratification and territory were the major constituents of cities. This pattern can be illustrated in case of early historic urbanisation of the Gaṅgā plains. We have to be even more cautious as our study is not satisfied with the issue of urbanization alone. We are rather concerned with the growth of nodal points. We have rather tried to trace the beginning of this whole process from the prehistoric times.

A general survey of the Middle Gaṅgā Plains has shown that the first colonisation in the form of seasonal migration come from the Vindhyan region. Lithic industry comprises parallel sided blades, back blunted blades, scrapers, points, burins and borers made of Chert. Few bone implements were also discovered. The Epi Palaeolithic phase in the middle Gaṅgā Plains roughly lasted from 17000–10000 BCE. The next Mesolithic period saw a dense distribution of sites but a discontinuous distribution. Recent excavations have located at least 500 sites in the eastern Vindhyan and the middle Gaṅgā region especially on the banks of river Ballia, Mirzapur district in the Vindhyan periphery, Sarai Nahar Rai, Mahadaha and Damdama in Pratapgarh, Laharia Dih in Sonbhadra districts of UP, Paisra in Bihar. The middle Gaṅgā plains underwent a quick cultural progress marked by a huge population growth and a consequent growth in the size and number of settlements. Large scale migration, free mixing of the people and an easy availability of food stuffs might be accounted for this growth. Advanced hunting weapons ensured better hunting operations. Thus a semi sedentary lifestyle evolved as revealed by thick occupational deposit. From late Mesolithic Chopani Mando wild rice has been reported. So the Mesolithic sites showed a remarkable material base with remains of wild rice, millets, jujube, microliths, fragments of querns, mullers and hammer stones made of sandstone, basalt and quartzite constituted their regular tools and many grinding stones found from sites showed grains were crushed for consumption.^[3] So an active human activity zone was created.

Amazing changes in material base and lifestyle took place in the subsequent Neolithic–Chalcolithic phase. Number of sites multiplied and mostly they flourished on the river banks. In Bihar, Maner, Taradih, Senuwar and associated sites, Chechar Kutubpur and Oriup were Neolithic village sites of 3^rd millennium BCE grown on the banks of the Gaṅgā. Vindhyan Neolithic sites were Koldihwa, Mahagara, Manigara and Tokwa. Change from foraging to farming has been often termed as the Neolithic Revolution. Both wild and cultivated variety of rice have been yielded by Koldihwa, Mahagara, Manigara belonging to the time of 7^th to 5^th millennia BCE. Rice and other agricultural remains of the Neolithic sites of Bihar belonged to a later period of the middle of the 3^rd millennium BCE. Crop specimens gathered from different Neolithic sites of Bihar were cultivated rice, wheat, barley, lentil, field pea, grass pea and some leguminous weeds. Taradih and Oriup showed uninterrupted sequence of farming but the richest agricultural evidences were found at Senuwar and the satellite settlements. Cultivated rice, barley, dwarf wheat, jowar millet, ragi-millet, pulses, field pea, grass pea have been reported from metal free Neolithic phase of 2200-1950 BCE. Senuwar Neolithic reveals some interesting aspects on the Neolithic culture of the middle Gaṅgā Plains.

The ceramic assemblage of Senuwar consisted of Rusticated Ware, Burnished Ware, Corded Ware which were of Vindhyan origin and were found in plenty in the Vindhyan sites of Koldihwa, Mahagara. Fabric, surface treatment and typology of the wares in both places are similar. Other cultural traits also showed resemblance and suggest that Senuwar and associated sites of Daindih, Sakas and Malaon all located in the Kaimur region shares a common origin with the Vindhyan sites like Koldihwa and Mahagara. Probably some pottery and implements using groups with knowledge of shelter making, domestication of crops migrated from the Belan valley to the foothills of Kaimur. This speaks of a common origin. So while Vindhya–Kaimur physically separates the two settlement zones it also provides a cultural link that can imply a common origin of settlement in these two geo-cultural zones.

From the Palaeolithic times and the area started to come under continuous occupation. During the Neolithic-Chalcolithic times, people started to spread out from this area and crossing the Vindhys settled down in the foothills of the Kaimur ranges. So the Neolithic–Chalcolithic settlements located in both sides of the Vindhya-Kaimur belonged to the same settlement cluster. Their common Neolithic–Chalcolithic beginning hint a homogenous cultural legacy to the whole of the middle Gaṅgā Plains. This cultural legacy created the base for pre-NBPW and later sites of the area.So by the Neolithic-Chalcolithic times already a strong economic base was created in the middle Gaṅgā plains to sustain further growth of settlements and eventual shift to urbanization. Population was seems to be fair implied by the distribution of Neolithic-Chalcolithic sites throughout the expanse of the Middle Gaṅgā Plains. Therefore a strong economic base for the rise of state or a stable political system was somewhat made. This could have also served as a potential hinterland for the nodal points. This has been suggested by many scholars (Anderson and Rathbone 2000, Cowgill 2004, Manzanilla 1997, M.E. Smith 2005 and M.L. Smith 2003, cited in Monica L. Smith p.97) The main argument of these modern scholars is, cities or more precisely the growth of nodal points should be studied with reference to the archaeological data provided by the immediate hinterland. They basically advocated study of settlements in terms of the whole ecological and cultural zones.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

George Erdosy, Origin of Cities in the Ganga Plain, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, Vol.28, no.1, 1985, pp.81-109

[2]:

Monica L. Smith, Archaeology of the South Asian Cities, Journal of Archaeological Research,14 (2) June 2006.pp.97- 142.

[3]:

Umesh Kumar Singh, “Rise of Cultures in the Middle Ganga Plain”, in Atul K. Sinha ed. Approaches to History, Culture, Art and Archaeology: Essays in the Honour of Professor Om Prakash, Anamika New Delhi, Publishers and Distributors Pvt. Ltd., 2009, p.405-06.