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METALLIC PERIOD
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up of the Harappa culture, the copper hoards, on the cont., rary seem to point to a culture which was mainly confined to the Gangetic basin with a possible southern extension across the Vindhya and the Kaimur ranges.”
Authors
In a trial excavation, very close to the find spot of the Bisauli hoard (U. P.), B. B. Lal found some rolled fragments of an ill-fired, thick, ochre-washed ware.' Another such find was recorded in 1949 by him from Rajpur Parsu in U. P.--other copper hoard site. Yet, another such site was at Hastināpura, where the strata, overlying this pottery, contained Painted Grey Ware, which appears to have been associated with the Aryans, when they occupied the upper basins of the Sutlej, Saraswati, Yamuna and Gangā round about 1000 B. C.?
Thus, if the copper hoards are to be associated with the ill-fired, ochre-washed, thick ware, it would follow that they are the products of a people who inhabited the Gangetic basin, presumably before the arrival of the Aryans. Who exactly these pre- and non-Aryans were, it is very difficult to determine in the present state of our knowledge. But it may not be out of place to recall here two typological observations made previously. Firstly, the bar-celts, which constitute an important type among the copper-hoards, seem to have developed from stone celts of a similar shape occuring in the hilly tracts of north-eastern Madhya Pradesh, southern Bihar, western West Bengal and northern Orissa.
1. Ancient India, VII, 1931, p. 36, soe also p. 27. 2. B. B. Lal-The Peinted Grey Ware of the Upper Gangetio
Basin: An approach to the Problems of the Dark Age - JRASB, New Series, (Latters) Vol. XVI, 1950, pp. 89f; S. Piggott-Anti. quity, Vol. 99, Sept, '51, pp. 166f; Amar Chand-Hostinäpura,
1951, pp. [5f ; seo aleo Illustrated London News, Oct. 4, 1952 3. Ancient India, Vol. VII, pp. 32 & 35.
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