Edited by Deepali Verma
The discovery of the remains of a 2,800-year-old human has been discovered in Gujarat’s Vadnagar, which is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s native village. Researchers from IIT Kharagpur, Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and Deccan College have been involved in unearthing the evidence.
The human settlement that dates as old as 800 BC unveiled the presence of seven cultural stages, the officials revealed. Dr Anindya Sarkar, Professor of Geology and Geophysics at IIT Kharagpur told ANI news agency that the excavation work is in progress since 2016 and the team has managed to dig up to a depth of 20 metres.
The publishing of these findings took place in a paper titled ‘Climate, human settlement, and migration in South Asia from Early historic to medieval period: Evidence from new archaeological excavation at Vadnagar, Western India’ in the journal name ‘Quaternary Science Reviews’.
ASI archaeologist Abhijit Ambekar, co-author of the paper, informed PTI news agency, “Excavation in the several deep trenches showed the presence of seven cultural stages namely, Mauryan, Indo-Greek, Indo-Scythian or Shaka-Kshatrapas, Hindu-Solankis, Sultanate-Mughal (Islamic) to Gaekwad-British colonial rule and the city is still continuing even today. One of the oldest Buddhist monasteries has also been unearthed during our excavation.”
Additionally, Ambekar informed that the archaeological artefacts they discovered included pottery, copper, gold, silver and iron objects and intricately designed bangles. Further, coin moulds of Greek king Appollodatus from the Indo-Greek rule at Vadnagar were also found.
The archaeologist further cemented the claims that the remains discovered make Vadnagar the oldest living city within a single fortification unearthed so far in Bharat.
Anindya Sarkar voiced that some of their recent unpublished radiocarbon dates are suggestive of the settlement being as old as 1400 BC, contemporary to the very late phase of the post-urban Harappan period. “If true, then it showcases a cultural continuity in Bharat for the last 5,500 years and that the so-called Dark Age may be a myth,” he added.
“The start of the earliest settlement period in Vadnagar was during 800 years BCE i.e., the early Iron Age or questionably the Late Vedic period and pre-dates both Buddhism and Jainism. This period extends well into the Mauryan rule and ends with its fall around 150 years BCE. After the downfall of the Gupta Empire, large-scale de-urbanisation, drying up of water bodies, famines and population contraction across Bharat occurred”, said Sarkar.
He remarked that during the last 2,200 years were tumultuous times of Bharatiya history and there were seven invasions from central Asia to Bharat (including Gujarat), imprints of which can also be found in the successive cultural periods of Vadnagar.
Archaeological Supervisor Mukesh Thakor in conversation with ANI said that the reason the excavated remains look like a live city is because the water management system was exceptional. He further informed that people of varying faiths lived at the site.
Thakor informed that more than one lakh remains have been unearthed and around 30 sites in Vadnagar have been excavated.
