Chalcolithic Villages in Baluchistan
By around 4300 BCE (Togau phase), the number of settlements known in Baluchistan and in the adjacent lowlands had greatly increased, and often they were larger than earlier sites. These settlements included Periano Ghundai in the Zhob Valley, Mundigak in the Kandahar region, Faiz Mohammad in the Quetta Valley, Togau in the Sarawan region, and Sheri Khan Tarakai in the Bannu Basin. Occupation also continued at Mehrgarh (period III) and other existing settlements.
Pottery, which had developed rapidly, was of fine quality, and many vessels were shaped on a wheel, allowing a degree of mass production, though others were handmade. Often the pots were painted with abstract or geometric designs. The widely distributed Togau ware vessels were decorated with stylized figures of caprids, birds, and other animals; somewhat similarly decorated wares were also being produced in contemporary Iran and Turkmenia. The geometric patterns are reminiscent of those created in later woven fabric and carpets, suggesting that there was also a flourishing textile industry: A spindle whorl found at Sheri Khan Tarakai supports this. Mehrgarh had become a center of craft production by the early fourth millennium: There workshops turned out large quantities of fine pottery, beads of lapis lazuli, turquoise, shell, and carnelian, shell bangles, and bone and stone tools, including tiny drills made of phtanite (a hard green chert containing traces of iron oxide) for perforating beads. A deep deposit of debris at the site included the remains of circular kilns, ash, and pottery wasters. A range of industrial activities has also been found at other sites of the period.
The development of kilns used to fire pottery at high temperatures gave the people of Baluchistan advanced pyrotechnological skills, which they also employed in other industrial activities. The majority of beads at Mehrgarh were made of steatite in a variety of shapes but standardized in size. They were converted to a white color by heating, and faint traces on their surface show that they were coated with a copper-based glaze, creating a type of faience: This would have required a controlled kiln temperature of around 1000 degrees Centigrade. The people of Mehrgarh and Baluchistan also smelted copper ores, which were available in Afghanistan, and cast objects in copper. These are rarely found since the metal was valuable, and broken tools or ornaments could be melted down for reuse. Gold was also worked, as is shown by the find of a tubular gold bead.
The well-established agricultural economy now included not only the original varieties of domestic cereal but also oats (Avena), a new variety of barley, and two developed varieties of bread wheat (T. aestivum compactum, club wheat, and T. aestivum sphaerococcum, shot wheat). The latter was to become the variety of wheat most commonly cultivated in South Asia.
Burials of this period have been excavated only at Mehrgarh. There was no longer any funerary architecture, but the rites were more varied, including both single and multiple inhumations and some secondary burials of collected bones. Grave goods were rare, usually consisting only of jewelry, worn mainly by adult women. Interestingly, the physical characteristics of the people buried in the period III cemetery suggest the presence of representatives of a new population, with affinities across the Iranian plateau and in the Near East, despite the strong cultural continuity from earlier periods.
World History
