Glossary

Anarta A kingdom of ancient India, roughly forming the northern Gujarat state of India. It was ruled by Yadavas after they fled from Mathura of Surasena Kingdom, due to the attacks of Jarasandha, the king of Magadha. The site of Anarta also has prehistoric remains which have given their name to a local Neolithic tradition.

Neolithic (New Stone Age) A period in the development of human technology that is traditionally the last part of the Stone Age.

Sedentism A term applied to the cultural transition from nomadic to permanent, year-round settlement.

The Neolithic period marks a major watershed in economy, social organization and technology. Although the Neolithic was initially recognized on the basis of a change in lithic technology, the production of ground stone axes, it soon came to be seen to relate to major changes in subsistence (food production), settlement pattern (sedentism), in cooking and food container technology (ceramics), and in the production of textiles. In India, as in other parts of the world, various traits of the Neolithic did not evolve simultaneously and thus research has begun to clarify the ordering and interrelationships of these changes. Through most of South Asia there is not a clear cultural or economic change associated with the beginnings of copper-working and an understanding of early food production invariably must consider sites from periods when copper is in use. Thus, scholars often talk of the Neolithic-Chalcolithic cultures and distinguish these from the earlier Mesolithic and the later Iron Age. In general terms, seven distinct Neolithic traditions can be defined in South Asia (Figure 1), and the development of settled village farming societies can be understood as developing from these regional traditions or interactions between them. In general, the emergence of Neolithic societies is recognizable by groundstone axes, food production, and/or ceramic manufacture during the Middle Holocene, as early as the late seventh millennium BC in the northwest and as late as c. 2000 BC in other parts of India (Figure 2). Despite the different dates at which the Neolithic began in various parts of India and Pakistan, many of these developments must be seen in terms of local processes of social evolution and environmental change.

An important context for considering these changes in provided by the environmental variability across south Asia and how this has been affected by climatic changes in the past (Figure 3). Much higher monsoon rainfall occurred in the Early Holocene, and to a lesser extent mid-Holocene, as is recorded in pollen and sedimentary evidence from the Thar Desert, Rajasthan, and from sea core records in the Arabian Sea. The mid-Holocene wet period is also characterized by higher winter rainfall in the northwest, which would have affected areas like Punjab, Rajasthan, and perhaps parts of central India. This is suggested, for example, by the strong shift toward C-3 vegetation indicated in carbon-13 isotope measurements from Lunkaransar lake. A drying trend toward modern rainfall conditions had started before the end of the fourth millennium BC and reached levels of near-modern aridity by 2000 BC. Marked events of sudden aridity are numerous but those at c. 6200 BC, 3400-3200 BC, and 2200 BC might be pointed out as potentially significant for understanding transitions to the Neolithic.