This thesis comprises seven chapters in all. Chapter I is an introduction dealing with the problems of the historical geography of ancient India, the nature of the sources and the dearth of materials. It has been shown in this chapter that no work of purely geographical nature was ever written in ancient India till very late and as such a student is confronted by many troubles in tackling with this problem. This chapter also throws light upon some of the pioneer workers in this field. Chapter II briefly covers the history of Bihar up to the end of 12th Century A. D.. In Chapter III, is discussed the mountain systems in the State of Bihar as they were known to the ancient scholars of this land and to foreigners who visited the country or had heard of those mountains from different sources, while Chapter IV gives an account of the rivers issuing fr%n different sources, their identification and nomenclature in early period of history and changes in their course if known. Chapter V discusses the ancient and early medieval political divisions of Bihar and different types of administrative units in various districts of the state. Chapter VI of the thesis deals.. with ancient and modern place-names of historical importance. An attempt has been made to identify some of the unidentified places and a short account has been given of those modern places whose antiquity is witnessed by ancient ruins and relics, but about whose history literature or archaeology is quite mute. The last chapter deals with the major trade routes which traversed this state from one end to another. In dealing with routes, the nature of the land and the modern lines of communication has always been kept in mind.

'Sind in unfortunate', says Abbot 'in its record, Inscriptions and archaeological finds have hitherto added little to our knowledge of her pact; her written record leaves centuries untold end buries the truth of other centuries in fiction. Her geographical features, by their apparant simplicity, have perverted research and added mystery to mystery unsolved, theory to theory irreconcilable, geographical factors have played a destructive part the extent of which we cannot Suage. It is well nigh impossible to write a continuous history of the valley, The interest of the valley, however, is probably in proportion to her many mysteries; the lure of exploration in always there to attract; her history and her geographical changes alike baffle interpretation; and the pursuit of on over-elusive solution makes research into her past a perpetual adventure. In consequence of the limitation of her materia historica One can write of Sind's many problems only with great diffidence but the falsities that pace for fact are so crude, the fiction of bold that masquerades as truth, the conflicting theories of savants so numerous, that it is time to call a halt and review what measure of achievement has been made. The picture is not quite no gloomy as depicted by Abbot, but there is much force in what he says.

This thesis examines the protohistoric cemeteries in northwestern Pakistan known as the Gandhara Grave Culture. These cemeteries are understood in terms of models developed by the Italian Archaeological Mission to Pakistan from the Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente (IsMEO) and the Department of Archaeology, University of Peshawar (UoP). These models explained these cemeteries in terms of migrations and particular ethnicities (e.g. Aryans) and dated them to between the mid-2nd to mid-1st millennium BC. Though developed in the 1960s by a select group of researchers, these models, with institutionalized support and tools, have grown into archaeological traditions that are still unquestioningly accepted in archaeology and taught in universities across Pakistan. The deconstruction of these archaeological traditions exposed their inner inconsistencies and circular arguments and showed that their explanations were more relevant to the main researchers than to the cemeteries. Both were the products of the academic and political environment of the researchers themselves, and were concerned with the national prestige of Italy and Muslim identity of Pakistan. The deconstruction and contextual analysis of existing chronological frameworks rendered them obsolete and unusable for the current study. The recalibration of the radiocarbon measurements from cemeteries suggested a longer date range (from 2200 to 30 cal BC in Swat and Dir valleys). The analyses and interpretations of the grave constructions, grave goods and burial practices showed both continuity and variation that could not be explained as a culture or particular ethnicity but were rather the result of a burial tradition or traditions that transcended different geographical regions, ethnic groups and archaeological cultures. Archaeological evidence and multiple analogies suggest the existence of multiple and competing ideologies, linked with concepts of ritualized landscapes and cosmos.

This study attempts to elucidate the meaning of the word 'mleccha' in its comprehensive sense and examine how it was applied as a designation for outsiders in the period before c, A.D. 600 in northern India. The first chapter discusses early Indian society and some of the concepts on which it was founded. The notion of the mleccha was part of the moral and social framework of this society which believed in its inherent cultural superiority. We further discuss the various source materials that have been utilized as far as they bear on our study. The first outstanding problem, studied in the second chapter, is the origin of the Sanskrit term mleccha and its relation with the Pali variant milakkha. This chapter is largely concerned with the varied implications of the theories on the etymology of these terms. The theories advocating either an Indo-European or a non-Indo-European origin of mleccha/milakkha produce inconclusive results which prevents us from placing our ideas on the concept of the mleccha on a firm linguistic basis. The reasons why mleccha first occured in the context of speech are presented in Chapter III. Both in this chapter and in the next we are concerned with the distinction on the basis of speech and the area of habitation which set the mlecchas apart. The Buddhist, Brahmanic and Jaina texts all emphasize these differences. At the same time we are able to show that there were changes in the attitudes towards mlecchas. We are, however, unable to define speech or area of habitation as the ultimate reasons for the separate existence of mlecchas in ancient Indian society. In the first half of Chapter V, we discuss the reasons why the mlecchas and outside groups were tolerated on a political level despite the fact that Indian monarchs worked within the brahmanical system. In the second half of the same chapter we consider the pejorative implications of the cultural discrimination of the mlecchas. However, the basic prejudice against the mlecchas had. to be modified in the face of historical changes. Finally, in Chapters VI and VII, we examine the flexibility in the treatment and categorization of the various outside groups. In Chapter VI the focus is on tribes and indigenous peoples designated as mlecchas. The comparison of the term mleccha with dasyu and with the names of individual tribes such as Kirata, Nisada, and Pulinda, which are often used to denote less developed tribes, is undertaken here. The subsequent chapter surveys the foreigners associated with ancient India as conquerors and rulers and the manner in which the brahmana literary writers viewed such invasions. The ambiguity in the use of the term mleccha in brahmanical writing has to be explained in the light of the political and economic status acquired by certain outside groups.

No description available.

The Fertile Crescent in the Near East is one of the independent sources of the Neolithic. Farming and pottery making spread across Europe from the Fertile Crescent from 9,000 to 6,000 years ago at an average rate of about 1 km/yr. The Neolithic in the Near East and the Indian subcontinent is far less explored in terms of absolute (14C) dates as compared to the European Neolithic. The Neolithic chronology in the Indian subcontinent is mainly established with comparative dating and few 14C dates are available from the region. Hence, though a strong causal connection between the Neolithic of the Near East and the Indus valley has been suggested, any detailed study has been challenging. The different nature of the archaeological and 14C dates and their uncertainties make it difficult to combine them in any quantitative analysis of the Neolithic. We overcome this by allocating different uncertainties and thus compile a comprehensive database of Early Neolithic dates in South Asia. Using the earliest Neolithic arrival time(s) for each site, the globally averaged Neolithic dispersal speed from the Near East to the Indian subcontinent is calculated to be U = 0.65 ± 0.1 km/yr. Further inspection of the data shows that the Neolithic sites were restricted to the Fertile Crescent until about 7,000 BCE, and only later spread along the northern and southern borders of modern Iran. Analysis identifies two distinct routes of the Neolithic dispersal, one from the northern Zagros and the other from the southern Zagros, with significantly different dispersal speeds (about 0.6 km/yr for the southern route and 2 km/yr for the northern route). Furthermore, when combined with the Indus sites, the data suggests that the Neolithic plausibly reached the Indian subcontinent from the Northern Zagros. The Neolithic of the Near East is studied further by using a two dimensional spatial diffusion model that incorporates palaeo-vegetation and topography data. Further expanding the scope of the diffusion model, the spread of incipient farming in the Indian subcontinent is studied. Depending on the environment, different staple food crops dominate in different regions (e.g. wheat in north-western India and rice in eastern India); and the model considers the spread of these different staple crops allowing for the altitude and water requirement for these crops.

The historical roles of women have been neglected in Sri Lankan archaeology. This study unveils the image of women and offers alternative explanations that contextualize the female in pre-modern history. The thesis is the first of its kind undertaken in Sri Lanka as a cross-regional study, with a view to understanding female representations depicted in murals and their social context in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The murals that embellished the Buddhist temples of pre-modern Sri Lanka were examined as primary sources for a comparative study. Primary data were collected through observational fieldwork and museum surveys. The mural paintings have generally been taken as decorative in the past, but this research considers their value for deciphering coded forms of communication and a visual language which reflects contemporary social dynamics. Geographically, the research focuses on two geographical areas, up-and low-country. Iconographic analysis and social archaeology of gender are applied as the main theoretical approaches to examine the social space occupied by women through three different streams: their religious life, empowerment and social identity. The thesis argues that in the mural paintings influenced women‟s lives by informing social behaviour, values and identity. Artists reinforced the idea of the role of mother as an embodiment of compassion. The murals of the „great‟ tradition represent the ideal practices of the time and through them artists reinforced social norms. At the same time, the depictions of the artists in the provincial tradition offer an alternative profile of energetic and empowered women, providing an alternative picture beyond the ideals and stereotypes. This research challenges the notion of gendered divisions of labour and suggests to us that the gender roles of pre-modern households was flexible and interchangeable and the economic self-reliance of women which empowered them within the household.

No description available.

Thomas J. Allen ... [et al]. / Bibliography: leaf 33.

Developing the idea of an ‘object biography’, as defined by Kopytoff (1986), this thesis challenges a fixed, static concept of antiquities and their present meanings by focusing on the routes they travel through space and time as they circulate through the hands of unauthorised finders, dealers and collectors. The research has been carried out in India, focusing on the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu. As a non-Western country with a period of colonial history, India is an ideal location to explore not just the diversity and mutability of these meanings but also the tensions between authorized and divergent viewpoints regarding the value and management of the past. My methodology has drawn on theoretical models from the social sciences that approach the production of meaning in and through material culture as an organic and on-going process of human-object relations. Through a process of qualitative surveying using purposive sampling and semi-structured interviews, two distinct object case studies have been devised and investigated: the circulation of structural and household antiques from the 19th and 20th century houses of the Nagarathar Chettiars, and the excavation of coins, beads, jewellery and figurines in the riverbeds of Tamil Nadu and their subsequent sale, collection and circulation. In the course of fieldwork I have recorded over 55 hours of interactions with 107 respondents in locations across Tamil Nadu, as well as Bangalore, Mumbai, Jodhpur and London. I have supported this data with photographs, fieldnotes, and internet sources. In my analysis of this data I have argued that many people in Tamil Nadu and South India feel a sense of distance and alienation from the world of ‘heritage’ as defined and managed by the government, while at the same time people are engaged in their own processes of meaning-making through the old objects they engage with and circulate on a daily basis. The objects studied in this thesis are not seen as pertaining to the ‘sleeping’ realm of antiquities and authorized heritage, but to the ‘waking’ realm of active circulation, use and transformation. Furthermore, in the variety of ways that people engage with and transform these objects we can see the negotiation of relationships with the past and identities in the present at a time of rapid social and economic change in India.