Mehrgarh instance of archaeological site
History
Mehrgarh is the earliest known site in Indian Subcontinent showing evidence of farming and herding. It was influenced by the Neolithic culture of the Near East, with similarities between "domesticated wheat varieties, early phases of farming, pottery, other archaeological artefacts, some domesticated plants and herd animals." According to Asko Parpola , the culture migrated into the Indus Valley and became the Indus Valley Civilisation of the Bronze Age.Jean-Francois Jarrige argues for an independent origin of Mehrgarh. Jarrige notes "the assumption that farming economy was introduced full-fledged from Near-East to South Asia," and the similarities between Neolithic sites from eastern Mesopotamia and the western Indus Valley, which are evidence of a "cultural continuum" between those sites. However, given the originality of Mehrgarh, Jarrige concludes that Mehrgarh has an earlier local background," and is not a "'backwater' of the Neolithic culture of the Near East."Periods of occupation
Archaeologists divide the occupation at the site into eight periods.Mehrgarh Period I (pre-7000 BCE–5500 BCE)
The Mehrgarh Period I (pre-7000 BCE – 5500 BCE) was Neolithic and aceramic (without the use of pottery). The earliest farming in the area was developed by semi-nomadic people using plants such as wheat and barley and animals such as sheep, goats and cattle. The settlement was established with unbaked mud-brick buildings and most of them had four internal subdivisions. Numerous burials have been found, many with elaborate goods such as baskets, stone and bone tools, beads, bangles, pendants, and occasionally animal sacrifices, with more goods left with burials of males. Ornaments of sea shell, limestone, turquoise, lapis lazuli and sandstone have been found, along with simple figurines of women and animals. Seashells from far seashores, and lapis lazuli from as far away as present-day Badakshan, show good contact with those areas. One ground stone axe was discovered in a burial, and several more were obtained from the surface. These ground stone axes are the earliest to come from a stratified context in South Asia.
Periods I, II, and III are considered contemporaneous with another site called Kili Gul Mohammad. The aceramic Neolithic phase in the region had originally been called the 'Kili Gul Muhammad phase'. While the Kili Gul Muhammad site, itself, probably started c. 5500 BC, the subsequent discoveries now allow to define the dates of 7000-5000 BC for this aceramic Neolithic phase.In 2001, archaeologists studying the remains of nine men from Mehrgarh discovered that the people of this civilization knew proto-dentistry. In April 2006, it was announced in the scientific journal Nature that the oldest (and first early Neolithic) evidence for the drilling of human teeth in vivo (i.e. in a living person) was found in Mehrgarh. According to the authors, their discoveries point to a tradition of proto-dentistry in the early farming cultures of that region. "Here we describe eleven drilled molar crowns from nine adults discovered in a Neolithic graveyard in Pakistan that dates from 7,500 to 9,000 years ago. These findings provide evidence for a long tradition of a type of proto-dentistry in early farming culture."Mehrgarh Period II (5500 BCE–4800 BCE) and Period III (4800 BCE–3500 BCE)
The Mehrgarh Period II (5500 BCE–4800 BCE) and Merhgarh Period III (4800 BCE–3500 BCE) were ceramic Neolithic, using pottery, and later chalcolithic. Period II is at site MR4 and Period III is at MR2. Much evidence of manufacturing activity has been found and more advanced techniques were used. Glazed faience beads were produced and terracotta figurines became more detailed. Figurines of females were decorated with paint and had diverse hairstyles and ornaments. Two flexed burials were found in Period II with a red ochre cover on the body. The number of burial goods decreased over time, becoming limited to ornaments and with more goods left with burials of females. The first button seals were produced from terracotta and bone and had geometric designs. Technologies included stone and copper drills, updraft kilns, large pit kilns, and copper melting crucibles. There is further evidence of long-distance trade in Period II: important as an indication of this is the discovery of several beads of lapis lazuli, once again from Badakshan. Mehrgarh Periods II and III are also contemporaneous with an expansion of the settled populations of the borderlands at the western edge of South Asia, including the establishment of settlements like Rana Ghundai, Sheri Khan Tarakai, Sarai Kala, Jalilpur, and Ghaligai.Period III was not much explored, but it was found that Togau phase (c. 4000-3500 BCE) was part of this level, covering around 100 hectares in the areas MR.2, MR.4, MR.5 and MR.6, encompassing ruins, burial and dumping grounds, but archaeologist Jean-François Jarrige concluded that "such wide extension was not due to contemporaneous occupation, but rather due to the shift and partial superimposition in time of several villages or settlement clusters across a span of several centuries."Mehrgarh Periods IV, V and VI (3500 BCE–3000 BCE)
Period IV was 3500 to 3250 BCE. Period V from 3250 to 3000 BCE and period VI was around 3000 BCE. The site containing Periods IV to VII is designated as MR1.Mehrgarh Period VII (2600 BCE–2000 BCE)
Somewhere between 2600 BCE and 2000 BCE, the city seems to have been largely abandoned in favor of the larger and fortified town Nausharo five miles away when the Indus Valley civilisation was in its middle stages of development. Historian Michael Wood suggests this took place around 2500 BCE.Archaeologist Massimo Vidale considers a series of semi-columns found in a structure at Mehrgarh, dated around 2500 BCE by the French mission there, is very similar to semi-columns found in Period IV at Shahr-e Sukhteh.: min.12:10
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