Mehargarh
Mehrgarh (Hindi:मेहरगढ़, Urdu: مہرگڑھ) is one of the most important Neolithic (7000 BCE to c. 2500 BCE) sites in archaeology, lies on the "Kachi plain" of Balochistan, Pakistan.
Location
Mehrgarh is located near the Bolan Pass, to the west of the Indus River valley and between the now Pakistani cities of Quetta, Kalat and Sibi.
History
It is one of the earliest sites with evidence of farming (wheat and barley) and herding (cattle, sheep and goats) in South Asia.[1]
Archaeology
Mehrgarh is now seen as a precursor to the Indus Valley Civilization. "Discoveries at Mehrgarh changed the entire concept of the Indus civilization," according to Ahmad Hasan Dani, professor emeritus of archaeology at Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad, "There we have the whole sequence, right from the beginning of settled village life."
According to Catherine Jarrige of the Centre for Archaeological Research Indus Baluchistan at the Musée Guimet in Paris:
"…the Kachi plain and in the Bolan basin (are) situated at the Bolan peak pass, one of the main routes connecting southern Afghanistan, eastern Iran, the Balochistan hills and the Indus River valley. This area of rolling hills is thus located on the western edge of the Indus valley, where, around 2500 BCE, a large urban civilization emerged at the same time as those of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Egypt. For the first time in the Indian Subcontinent, a continuous sequence of dwelling-sites has been established from 7000 BCE to 500 BCE, (as a result of the) explorations in Pirak from 1968 to 1974; in Mehrgarh from 1975 to 1985; and of Nausharo from 1985 to 1996."
The chalcolithic people of Mehrgarh also had contacts with contemporaneous cultures in northern Afghanistan, northeastern Iran and southern central Asia.[2]
Jat History
Hukum Singh Panwar (Pauria)[3] writes that ....The Scythic (Saka) element in the ornaments discovered at Mehargarh[4] near Quetta in the Kachi plains takes the Saka association with and occupation of Balochistan by them as far back from about 8566 B.C. down to 2400 B.C.
References
- ↑ Hirst, K. Kris. 2005. "Mehrgarh". Guide to Archaeology
- ↑ Kenoyer, J. Mark, and Kimberly Heuston. 2005. The Ancient South Asian World. Oxford University Press. 176 pages. ISBN 0-19-517422-4.
- ↑ The Jats:Their Origin, Antiquity and Migrations/The migrations of the Jats to the North-Western countries,p.230
- ↑ South Asian Archaeology, ed. Bridget Allchin, London, 1981. pp. 23-24,57.
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