Chalcolithic Culture

The Chalcolithic culture, also known as the “Copper Age”, represents a key phase in human history that emerged around 5,000 to 3,000 BC. This transitional period bridged the gap between the Neolithic Age, characterized by stone tools and agriculture, and the Bronze Age, characterized by advanced metalworking.

During the Chalcolithic period, humans began experimenting with metallurgy, specifically copper, along with a continued reliance on stone tools. This shift to metalworking allowed the production of more durable and effective tools and weapons, revolutionizing agriculture, trade, and warfare.

The Chalcolithic period saw the flourishing of complex societies and the development of more advanced forms of social organization. Communities became more connected through trade networks, and the surplus of resources generated by metalworking contributed to the emergence of early urban centers.

Chalcolithic cultures were culturally diverse, with significant regional variations around the world. This period laid the foundation for the subsequent Bronze Age, where the mastery of metallurgy led to even greater technological progress and the emergence of powerful civilizations.

Chalcolithic Culture

Introduction Chalcolithic culture

The Neolithic phase is divided into pre-ceramic and ceramic phases. At the end of the Neolithic culture, the use of metal began. Copper was the first metal to be used. During this phase, stone tools continued to be used along with copper tools. Therefore, this phase of cultural evolution is known as the Chalcolithic phase. It is also known as the Neolithic-Chalcolithic or Stone-Copper phase. A good discussion of the development and advantages associated with the use of copper is available in V.G. Childe’s What Happened in History. Technically, this phase is applied to the pre-Harappan period, but a large number of Chalcolithic cultures appeared after the end of the Harappan phase with significant regional variations. In this section, we will focus on the cultures rooted in the Bronze Age Harappan civilization. Although these cultures predominantly used stone and copper, they also used lower-quality bronze in certain places. These cultures emerged largely in isolation from the Indus Valley Civilization. During this phase, a pattern of more or less uniform peasant agricultural settlements emerged within and beyond the Indus region.

The first significant site of the Chalcolithic culture

The first important area is southern Rajasthan. The Chalcolithic culture of the area is known as the Banas culture after the river of that name. This is also known as the Ahar culture from the type site. We have three important sites belonging to this culture: Ahar, Gilund, and Balathal. Chalcolithic Ahar (near Udaipur) has three phases, B and C dated to 2580, 2080, and 1500 BC. Special features include the complete absence of stone tools and the abundance of copper axes and other objects. Piles of copper slag have been discovered, clearly indicating that this was a copper smelting center. Copper was brought from deposits in the nearby Aravali Hills. One of the dominant products is black and red ware with white painted decoration. The bowl on the stand was present at all times. A large number of grindstones and saddle querns were considered important indicators of grain production. Humped cattle were an important element in the economy as terracotta figurines and bones were discovered. Other animals include domestic chicken, domestic donkey, buffalo, sheep, goat, and pig. Rice, sorghum, bajra, and sitina millet were cultivated. Houses in Ahar had walls of stone and mud or adobe, and perhaps also wattle and daub.

Gilund Chalcolithic site

Structural remains have been discovered in Gilund, northeast of Ahar. It has a system of mud brick walls that seem to have been formed from a large platform similar to the Harappan planning. A stone-blade industry was recorded here. Excavations at Balathal have shown that Chalcolithic settlement began around 2600 BC and continued until 2000 BC. Here, stone blocks were used as housing material, the houses were multi-roomed with kitchens and storage areas. Two pottery kilns were found. Copper objects are abundant. The plant contains wheat, barley, panic millet, Italian millet, black and green gram, pea, linseed, and jujube. Antiquities include terracotta bull figurines, terracotta and semi-precious beads, terracotta balls, stone querns, grinders and hammers.

Chalcolithic site of Malwa

• (i) The Malwa region, drained by the rivers Chambal, Kali Sindh, Narmada, Sipra, Betwa, and others, is dotted with Chalcolithic sites, but full accounts are available only for Nagda, Kayatha, Navdatoli and Eran. Kayatha, near Ujjain, on the Choti Kali Sindh, has been excavated twice and has revealed three phases of Chalcolithic occupation. The beginning of the settlement is dated between ca. 2400 and 2120 BC. Typical “Kayatha ware” is fine, robust, wheel-made, and has linear painted designs in purple on a dark brown slip. However, 85% of the ceramics are handmade. This ware is also associated with red-painted buff ware and red worsted ware. There is an extensive microlithic chalcedony blade industry. Two copper axes cast in a mold, 27 copper bracelets in two vessels, weights for digging sticks, a vessel containing 40,000 microbleeds of steatite, domesticated cattle and horse figurines, mud and reed houses with mud-plastered floors are prominent Kayatha features. More than 40 sites of the Kayatha culture have been located so far. M.K. Dhavalikar believes that ‘Kayatha ware’ has early Harappan affinity and that its steatite microspheres are identical to Harappan samples. Terracotta figurines of bulls indicate the presence of a bull cult. The second period is dated between 2100 and 1800 BC, while the third period is between 1800 and 1500 BC. In the second period, some changes in pottery are reported, and in the third, wheat is recorded.
• (ii) Chalcolithic culture of Malwa type is also reported from Eran on the Betwa River and Tripuri near Jabalpur on the Narmada River. In Eran, the culture spread from c.1700 to 1170 BC. Nagda and Earn design massive mud walls. Overall, the Malwa Ware typical of the Malwa Chalcolithic culture is considered the richest among Chalcolithic ceramics.

Navdatoli Chalcolithic site

Four phases of Chalcolithic settlement have been recorded at Navdatoli, located on the south bank of the Narmada, dating between 2020 and 1660 BC. A stone blade industry and copper tools were discovered. Cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs were domesticated. Two types of wheat were found. The main distinguishing feature is painted black and red ware, a distinctive pottery with black painted decoration known as “malwa ware”. In the second phase, we have evidence of rice cultivation. In the third phase, new features seem to have come from the West, including population migration. A new feature was the fine, often wheel-thrown, red pottery with black painted decoration called “Jorwe Ware”. At this stage, we have copper fish hooks, rice, and several pulses (lentils, black gram, green gram, peas, linseed, jujube, and myrobalan). Other notable finds include copper flat axes, wire rings, bracelets, nail papers, chisels, stout pins and a broken center rib sword, saddles, hammerstones, rubbers, maces or digging stick weights, agate beads, amazonite, carnelian, chalcedony, faience, glass, jasper, lapis lazuli, steatite shell, terracotta animal figures, spindle whorls, etc. “A pit dug in the floor in the middle of a house, the sides and floor of which are plastered with mud and charred wood. its four corners, a storage vessel, which in its application depicts a shrine with a female worshiper on the right and a lizard on the left” (Chakrabarti, 1997). The occurrence of a large number of cattle/bull figurines has been suggested as evidence of some kind of Saivite belief supported by some terracotta representations of the phallus.

The Chalcolithic Period of Western Maharashtra

In terms of the Chalcolithic period, western Maharashtra is the most extensively excavated area. Excavations have been carried out at Jorwe, Prakash, Bahal, Nevasa, Daimabad, Chandoli, Sonegaon, Inamgaon, etc. Of all these sites, only Daimabad shows the entire Chalcolithic assemblage sequence. AD and features “Savalda ware”, a microlithic blade industry, two copper bracelets, four beads (shell, carnelian, steatite, and terracotta), ring stones, saddle vaults, a phallus made of agate, tool bones, green gram and many houses including a priestly home. Savalda ware is brown, blackish, and chocolate colored, made on a slow wheel with painted patterns of tools, weapons, and geometric motifs. Above this phase is a second shallow deposit which produced a red ware described as having Harappan affinities and a sherd which had three letters in the Indus script.

Daimabad culture

In the second period (2000-1600 BC). currently, with the Late Harappan phase, we have a fine, solid red wheel-made ware, two button seals with Indus characters and four inscribed sherds, Indus 4:2:1 mud bricks, a copper smelter, a microlithic blade, gold beads, a terracotta measuring scale, semicircular red ware depicting a figure of a tiger leaping on the back of a buffalo. The famous hoard of four heavy solid cast copper objects belongs to this phase (Allchins attributes it to the third phase, while D.K. Chakrabarti attributes it to the second phase). This has been discussed in detail in the chapter on Harappan Civilization. Period III was defined as the Daimabad culture where the diagnostic pottery was black-on-buff/creamware. Hyacinth beans are also introduced. The elephant workpiece is interesting. There is a small section of the copper smelting furnace. Period IV is the Malwa culture with extensive structural evidence with five altars. Period V at Daimabad is the Jorwe culture, which is the most visible Chalcolithic phase of Maharashtra (200 sites) characterized by black-painted red ware with a carinated bowl and a vessel with a tubular spout as its typical forms. Here, many excavated houses are identified with various trades: a butcher’s hut, a lime house, a potter’s house, a bead house, a merchant’s house, etc. One structure was called an “apsidal temple”.

Horse carriage

A terracotta cylinder seal depicting a horse cart or chariot and some human depictions on terracotta objects identified as a male sage and his consort were found. Some of the skeletons show the presence of tooth decay and a form of infantile scurvy.

Chalcolithic site of Inamgaon

At Inamgaon we have the most detailed picture of the Jorwe cultural phase. In the late Jorwe phase, there were clusters of circular houses with a common courtyard. In the early stage of Jorwe, there was an irrigation canal with a mud embankment. At Walki, evidence suggests that bone plows and seed drills were used in agriculture. Important discoveries at Inamgaon include pottery kilns, gold ornaments, depictions of bullock carts, copper slag and cups, limestones, terracotta figurines with strong religious connotations (clay boxes with female figurines), terracotta lamps, a two-tiered residential hierarchy depicting chieftaincy levels’ political phase, a Ganeshwar type copper arrowhead, a single spiral copper pin, evidence of consumption of dog meat, wheat, barley, sorghum, peas, lentils, and horse gram.

Norwegian culture

Named after the type site of Jorwe, the Jorwe culture dated to 1500 to 700 BC is found in Nevas, Chandoli, Sonegaon, and Inamgaon. Although Jorwe culture was essentially rural, some places like Daimabad and Inamgaon almost reached an urban stage. Some of the important discoveries of the Jorwe phase of culture at various sites are copper chisels at Chandoli, a copper point spear with a weak midrib and a feeler hilt and a copper fish hook at Chandoli, a stone ax factory at Nevas, beads strung on silk thread. cotton net from Nevasa burial, similar string from Chandoli with linen thread, cotton spinning from Navdatoli, terracotta mother goddess from Nevasa, etc. Many Chalcolithic sites have been found in Vindhyan regions around Allahabad district. Amlidih, Narhan, Sohgaura, and Khairadih are important places. In Eastern India, some of the important sites are Chirand, Senuar, Sonpur, and Taradih in Bihar and Pandu Rajar Dhibi and Mahisadal in West Bengal etc.

Conclusion

The Chalcolithic period appears to be the most important in the further development of Indian culture. During this phase, there was a consolidation of village farming communities across India. The foundation of modern rural India was laid during this phase. “In fact, it is with reference to modern rural India that this period takes on a great character: the same types of regional villages, houses, and regional crops, the same dependence on cattle, the same places, the persistence of much of the old craft activity, the consolidation of the main lines of movement along which trade and exchanged both raw materials and finished goods and perhaps the same framework of ritual behavior” (D.K. Chakrabarti, 1997).

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