5. The Chalcolithic Culture

Chalcolithic Settlements

• Towards the end of neolithic period began the use of metals first was copper, and several cultures were based on the use of stone and copper implements, such cultures are called Chalcolithic.
• They are found in many places in India such as -
1. In South Eastern Rajasthan - At Ahar and Gilund sites lying in dry zones of Banas river valley.
2. In Western MP - In Malwa, Kayatha and Eran have been exposed.
3. In Western Maharashtra - The most extensive sites such as Jorwe, Nevasa, Daimabad in Ahmadnagar District, Chandoli, Songaon, Inamgaon in Pune district and in Nasik have been excavated.
4. Some other sites are also found in the Allahabad region due to its proximity to Vindhyas, besides Chirand on the Ganga, in Andhra Pradesh and in Pandu Rajar Dhibi in Burdwan district and Mahishdal in Midnapore district in West Bengal. 

 

Chalcolithic cultures

• The people belonging to this culture used small tools and weapons made of stone in which stone blade occupied an important position.
• Hand axes and other objects made of copper are numerous because raw copper is locally available.
• The people of the stone copper phase used different types of pottery, one of which is called black and red pottery which was widely prevalent and occasionally painted with white linear designs.
• People living in (a,b,c) produce channel-spouted pouts, dishes on stand and bowls on stand.
• The western India People (a,b,c) domesticated cattle, sheep, goats, pigs and buffaloes and hunted deer. They cultivated Wheat and rice along with bajra, lentils, gram and pea etc. As found in Navdatoli situated on the bank of Narmada in Maharashtra.
• In eastern India fish hooks have been found along with rice suggesting that they lives on fish and rice as seen today.
• These people ere not acquainted with burnt bricks as their houses were made of mud bricks and mostly constructed with wattle and daub i.e. Thatched houses.
• Settlements became stable and widespread in this phase called Jorwe culture and called so because its type-site is provided by Jorwe, a village situated on the Pravara river.
• The chalcolithic economy was a village economy and these people had no urban civilization.
• These people were clearly experts copper smiths and also good workers in stone, and knew the art of spinning and weaving as spindle whorls have been discovered in Malwa.
• Cotton, flax and silk threads have been found in Maharashtra showing that these people were acquainted with the manufacture of cloth.
• In Maharashtra people buried their dead in urns under the floor of their house in north to south position and didn't use separate cemeteries as was the case with the Harappans.
• This phase of culture was not older than 1800 B.C. And have continued in some areas till 1000 B.C. And in other areas till 800 B.C. or even later.

 

Importance of the Chalcolithic Phase

• In this phase people mostly founded rural settlements on river banks not far removed from hills.
• In South India the neolithic phase imperceptibly faded into the stone-copper phase and so called as neolithic-chalcolithic. 
• In western India we have more animal food but fish and rice formed important elements in the diet of eastern India.
• As in Maharashtra the dead body was placed in north-south position but in south India in East-West position.

Limitations of Chalcolithic cultures

• The Chalcolithic social and economic pattern did not promote longevity as evident from the high infant mortality rate.
• It had an essentially rural background. And during this phase the supply of copper was limited and people didn't know the art of mixing copper with tin to make a stronger and more useful metal called Bronze.
• They didn't know the art of writing nor did they live in cities as the people of Bronze age did.
• Although most Stone-Copper age cultures existing in the major part of the country were younger than Indus-valley civilization, they didn't derive any substantial benefit from the advanced technological knowledge of the Indus people.

 

The Copper Age in India

• Copper hoards have been found in a wide ranging fro Chotanagpur plateau to the upper Gangetic basin but mainly concentrated in Ganga-Yamuna doab comprising of celts, harpoons, antenna swords and anthropomorphic figures.
• These objects have been discovered in association with ochre-coloured pots and some mud structures showing that the people led a settled life and were one of the earliest primitive agriculturists, and artisans settled in good portion of the doab.
• The period covered by the ochre-coloured pottery culture is placed between 2000 B.C. And 1800 B.C. And when these settlements disappeared the doab does not show much habitation till about 1000 B.C.
• In upper Gangetic basin, the metal age really begins with the settlements of the copper-using ochre-coloured pottery people. However at no place did these settlements last for more than a century or so nor were they considerable in size and spread over a wide territory.
• The copper-hoard people were contemporaries of the Harappans and the ochre-coloured pottery area in which they lived was not far removed from that of the Harappans.
• We may therefore expect some give and take between these copper-using people and the Bronze-using Harappans.