Archaeological Sources of Ancient Indian History (UPSC)

-

Archaeology is the study of the human past though material remains. Material remains range from vestiges of grand palaces and temples to the small, discarded products of everyday human activity such as pieces of broken pottery. They include different things such as structures, artefact, bones, seeds, pollen, seals, coins, sculptures, and inscriptions.

 Archaeology is based on Scientific Observation. Thus it helps us to dig the mound in a systematic manner, in successive layers to form an idea of Material life of People in the Past. Radiocarbon or C-14 helps us to determine the age of objects and with the help of Pollen Analysis we got to know the history of climate and vegetation of the past.


Culture

  Material evidence is a key to understanding human behaviour and experience.  It is not enough to describe a stone tool or pot; the challenge is to get the stone  tool or pot to tell their stories about the people who made and used them. As the  products of craft traditions and part of the lifestyles of people, artefacts are  rooted in specific cultural contexts. So, the narrow technical meaning of  ‘culture’ in archaeology can be stretched to correspond to the wider meaning mentioned earlier. The rhythms and patterns of time based on material culture are generally slower and longer than those of historical events, and  archaeological Indian cultures do not coincide with the rise and fall of dynasties or  kingdoms.   


Field Archaeology

Field archaeology deals with the exploration and excavation of sites. Sites are places where material remains of past human activity can be identified. In the plains, in areas where mud and brick were used for making houses,  archaeological sites occupied by people for a very long time are often visible as  mounds. Mounds get formed over the centuries due to the rebuilding of structures and the accumulation of rubbish, windblown sand, and other  sediments.      

 

Palaeontology

Palaeontology is the study of the remains of dead organisms over enormous  spans of time. Within this discipline, molecular biology and DNA studies have  been used to understand hominid evolution, to answer questions about what  ancient people looked like, and to plot patterns of migration. 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 hunted and domesticated, the age of animals at death, and the  diseases that afflicted them. The bones of wild and domesticated species can  usually be differentiated. The joints of animals used for agriculture or draught  purposes get fused and can be identified. Faunal remains can lead to inferences  about aspects of environment such as climate, vegetation, and the season during  which a site was occupied. Sometimes, bones reveal contacts between  communities. For instance, the identification of marine fish bones and shells at  Inamgaon—at least 200 km from the sea—shows that its inhabitants had  contacts with coastal communities .


Cognitive archaeology

Cognitive archaeology, which deals with ways of thinking, beliefs, and  religion, is a fast-developing area within archaeology. Although a large number  of religious texts are available for ancient and early medieval India, an  exclusively text-based view of religion will not tell us everything we want to  know about religious practice. The material evidence of ancient religions can make a major contribution in this area. There are many problems involved in translating archaeological cultures into history. An archaeological culture need not necessarily correspond to a linguistic  group, political unit, or a social group such as a lineage, clan, or tribe. One of  the most important questions is how to explain changes in material culture,  especially pottery traditions. This is an issue that has not yet been adequately  addressed or understood in the context of ancient India.     

Ethnography

Ethnography is the study of living cultures and communities. Ethno-  archaeology studies the behaviour and 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 and  methods survive—for instance in agriculture, animal husbandry, house building,  the clothes people wear and the food they eat. Modern crafts persons are an  important guide for understanding the ways in which ancient crafts persons made  things. Technology involves much more than the techniques used for making  artefact. It is necessary to explore the social organization of crafts persons, the  customs and beliefs that material objects were part of, how goods were  marketed, the relationship between crafts persons and traders, and between crafts persons and customers. Ethno-archaeology helps answer these sorts of questions as well. For instance, a tradition of carnelian bead manufacturing  exists in Khambhat, in Gujarat, today. Studying modern bead making in this  region gives valuable clues about the way in which the Harappan beads may  have been made and the possible social organization of the bead makers.    

 

Epigraphy or Ancient Inscription

Inscriptions and coins come under the general umbrella of archaeology and archaeological sources, but they are subjects of specialized study in their own  right. The study of inscriptions is known as epigraphy. An ancient inscription is any writing that is engraved on something—stone, wood, metal, ivory plaques,  bronze statues, bricks, clay, shells, pottery, etc. Epigraphy includes deciphering  the text of inscriptions and analyzing the information they contain. It also  includes palaeography, the study of ancient writing.   

As mentioned earlier, the oldest inscriptions in the Indian subcontinent are in  the yet undeciphered Harappan script. The oldest deciphered inscriptions belong  to the late 4th century BCE, and are in Brahmi and Kharoshthi (sometimes spelt  Kharoshti). These include those of the Maurya emperor Ashoka (Ashokan Inscriptions) which are in a  number of different indian languages and scripts, but mostly in the Prakrit language and  Brahmi script. As there are no obvious links between the Harappan script and  Brahmi or Kharoshthi, what happened to writing in between remains a mystery.  There is no direct mention of writing in Vedic literature, but references to poetic  metres, grammatical and phonetic terms, very large numbers, and complex  arithmetical calculations in later Vedic texts are taken by some historians to  indicate the possibility that writing may have been known at the time.   

The first definite literary references to writing and written documents occur in  the Buddhist Pali texts, especially the Jatakas and the Vinaya Pitaka. Panini’s  Ashtadhyayi refers to the word lipi (script). The Brahmi of Ashoka’s inscriptions  seems a fairly developed script, and it must have had a prior history of at least a  few centuries. Recently, important direct evidence that Brahmi existed in pre-  Maurya times has come from Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka, where excavations  unearthed potsherds with short inscriptions (probably names of people) that can  be dated to at least the early 4th century BCE.   

There are three main types of scripts. In a logographic script, written symbols  stand for a word, in a syllabic script for a syllable, and in an alphabetic script for  a single phonetic sound. In the strict sense of the term, in an alphabet, the vowels  should have a separate and fully independent status equal to that of consonants.  Both the Brahmi and Kharoshthi scripts stand midway between alphabetic and  syllabic scripts, and can be described as semi-syllabic or semi-alphabetic. 

 

Numismatic

In modern times, money functions as a medium of exchange, a store of value, a  unit of accounts, and a medium of deferred payment. In its most general sense,  money is any item that is accepted by a community for the exchange of goods or  services or for the discharge of debt. Currency and coinage are more specific  terms. Currency is a medium of exchange backed by an issuing authority, one  that can be used to immediately discharge any kind of financial obligation.  Coinage is metal currency. It has a definite size, shape, and weight standard, and  bears the stamp of an issuing authority. The main message-bearing side of a coin  is known as the obverse and the other side the reverse. In the world context, the  earliest coins appear in Lydia in West Asia in c. 700 BCE and were made of  electrum, a natural alloy of gold and silver.

    Numismatics or the study of coins includes the analysis of the material out of  which coins were made; the identification of the sources of the metals; the  classification and study of the form of coins on the basis of their fabric (size,  shape, thickness, design, workmanship), metrology (weight), design, metallic composition, techniques of manufacture, and message content. Ancient coins are  usually discovered by accident. A very small proportion finds its way into the  hands of coin collectors or governments; the majority end up getting lost, melted  down, or destroyed. Coins occur as stray individual finds or as part of coin  hoards. Hoards are especially valuable for monetary history and consist of coins  withdrawn from human custody (due to being buried underground for safety, or  fire, floods, loss, etc.) and found subsequently.

  Metrology—the measurement and arrangement of coins by weight—is an important aspect of numismatics. In the course of circulation, coins are subjected  to wear and tear and their weight gradually decreases. This fact enables  numismatists to arrange them in a chronological sequence and to distinguish  between coins of a hoard that have been in circulation for greater and less  periods of time. Various techniques are used for ascertaining the metal content  of coins. One method is to carefully inspect their colour and lustre. There are  other informal physical procedures such as testing for resonance by dropping the  coin on a hard surface to produce a sound or testing its ductility by biting it. A  water displacement test can be conducted to measure a coin’s specific gravity.  There are also several chemical testing procedures for ascertaining metal  composition. These are more accurate but generally damage the coin. Non-  destructive scientific techniques such as X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectrometry,  which are now being used to analyse the elemental composition of coins,  provide quick and accurate results.   

          Mint towns can be identified by noting sites where large numbers of coin  moulds have been found. An analysis of coin dies can help identify the number  and sequence of issues and estimates of the volume of coins produced by these  dies can be made by extrapolation.   


India India

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Vedic Education - Aims, Salient features, Special reference to Curriculum and Method of teaching.

-
Image
Introduction In ancient Indian education emerged from the Vedas because the Vedas are the sources of Indian philosophy of life. The Veda means knowledge. In that period the education was divided into two kinds of knowledge, one is ' This Worldly'  and another is ' Other Worldly ' . (Worldly and Other Worldly) 'This Worldly' dealt with the social aspect  whether the 'Other Worldly' related to intellectual pursuits for achieving salvation. However the greater Emphasis was laid on the letter, because education was considered as the mean of free from life bondages. SYSTEM OF EDUCATION DURING VEDIC PERIOD The system of education during the vedic period was totally different from Today's education system. The student life in vedic period was began with Upanayana ceremony.  This was performed for 3 days. And the students go to this chosen teacher, called as Acharya.  (Upanayana or Thread Ceremony) The place of learning w
Read more

Understanding Literary Source of Ancient India

-
  Understanding Literary Source Of Ancient India In 1148   CE , rary and scholarly ambitions, began writing a bKalhana, a man with  liteook. Kalhana belonged to a well-connected Brahmana family of Kashmir. His father Chanpaka was at one time closely associated with the royal court, but by the time Kalhana was born, the family had fallen out of favour. Kalhana worked hard for two years, recording local traditions and examining manuscripts, chronicles, inscriptions, coins, and monuments. He drew on his family members’ political experience and his personal observation of events that were unfolding in his own lifetime. The book was completed in 1150  CE  and was titled  Rajatarangini  (River of Kings). Consisting of eight cantos, each called a  taranga  (wave), it gave a connected account of the kings of Kashmir from the early ones of legend to the historical rulers of the 12th century.       Kalhana is often described as India’s first historian. He asserts in the  Rajatarangini  that a pe
Read more

Indian Pre Historic Period - Paleolithic. (Indian Stone Age)

-
  Classifying the Indian Stone Age   The three-age system—the idea that there was an age of stone tools, followed by    one dominated by those of bronze and then of iron—was first put forward in the    late 18th and early 19th centuries by the Danish scholars P. F. Suhm and    Christian Thomsen. The accuracy of this theory was proved by excavations by    another Danish scholar, Jacob Worsaae. The next important step was to identify    changes within the stone age. In 1863, John Lubbock divided the stone age into    two parts, the  palaeolithic  and  neolithic . A few years later, Edouard Lartet    suggested the division of the palaeolithic into the lower, middle, and upper    palaeolithic, largely on the basis of changes in fauna associated with the    different tool types. Archaeologists gradually identified distinct tool-making    traditions within the palaeolithic and also recognized the significance of changes    in subsistence patterns within the stone age. The use of the term  me
Read more

Vedic Literature

-
Image
    The word ‘Veda’ is derived from the root ‘vid’, which means to know. In other words, the term ‘Veda’ signifies ‘superior knowledge’. The Vedic literature consists of the four Vedas – Rig, Yajur, Sama and Atharva.      The Rig Veda is the earliest of the four Vedas and it consists of 1028 hymns. The hymns were sung in praise of various gods. The Yajur Veda consists of various details of rules to be observed at the time of sacrifice. The Sama Veda is set to tune for the purpose of chanting during sacrifice. It is called the book of chants and the origins of Indian music are traced in it. The Atharva Veda contains details of rituals.  (Ramayana and Mahabharata)      Besides the Vedas, there are other sacred works like the Brahmanas, the Upanishads, the Aranyakas and the epics Ramayana and Mahabharata. The Brahmanas are the treatises relating to prayer and sacrificial ceremony. (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad) The Upanishads are philosophical texts dealing with topic like the soul, the absol
Read more

VEDIC CULTURE

-
Image
Introduction The cities of the Harappan  Culture had declined by 1500 B.C . Around this period, according to Rig Veda, Aryan (Earliest specimen of the Indo-European languages, Sanskrit) entered the north-west India from the Indo-Iranian region.  First, Aryan appeared in Iran, where Indo-Iranians lived for a long time. And then they came to India. Their initial settlements were in the valleys of the north-west and the plains of the Punjab. Later, they moved into Indo-Gangetic plains. As they were mainly a cattle keeping people, they were mainly in search of pastures. By 6 th century B.C., they occupied the whole of North India, which was referred to as Aryavarta. This period between 1500 B.C and 600 B.C may be divided into the Early Vedic Period or Rig Vedic Period (1500 B.C -1000 B.C) and the Later Vedic Period (1000B.C-600 B.C). Origin and Identity of Aryans Aryans spoke the Indo-European language, Sanskrit. They seem to have lived somewhere in the area east of the Alp, in the region
Read more

ORIGIN AND IDENTITY OF ARYANS (VEDIC CULTURE)

-
Image
Aryans spoke the Indo-European language, Sanskrit. They seem to have lived somewhere in the area east of the Alp, in the region known as Eurasia. But the  original home of the Aryans is  still  a debatable question and there are several views. Different scholars have identified different regions as the original home of the Aryans. The earliest life of Aryans seem to have been mainly pastoral. They used several animals. The most important was Horse. But it should be remembered that this animal was unknown to the Harrapans. And some historians remarked that because of horse, Aryan could come to India.  
Read more