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Eternal India
encyclopedia
ARCHAEOLOGY
The
Malwa Culture
is designated as such because of its wide
distribution in the Malwa region of Madhya Pradesh. The distinc-
tive pottery has an orange red slip and is painted in black with a
wide range of designs including animal and geometric motifs. At
Navdatoli on the Narmada the Malwa culture is found in all its
exuberance. The Black and Red Ware also occurs here in the early
levels. Outside the Malwa region the Malwa Ware occurs in
Maharashtra and Gujarat where it is succeeded by Jorwe Culture.
Wheat, barley, lentil and rice were cultivated by the Malwa people.
The houses were rectangular and circular in plan. Besides storage
jars they used channel-spouted bowls and pots with high corru-
gated neck. The painting is extraordinarily variegated. Even fig-
ures of magician or God are painted on the vessels. The total
absence of human burials may indicate cremation as one of the
methods of disposing the dead. Elsewhere the few skeletons from
Malwa Culture sites are said to show traits of a Mediterranean
group. But such classifications are not considered by anthropolo-
gists as reflecting any foreign trait.
Unlike in Ahar the use of copper is very limited at Navdatoli, but
microlithic blades are plenty in number. The channel-spouted bowl
and goblet and the fragmentary blade of a sword with midrib found
in Navdatoli are said to suggest contact with west Asia, which is
likely because by 1500 B.C. Dwaraka had established overseas
contact with Bahrain and perhaps Syria and Cyprus also. Slightly
earlier Prabhas too had contact with West Asia as indicated by the
seal. By 1400 B.C. the Malwa Culture spread to other regions es-
pecially to the Godavari Valley evolving in the process what came
to be called as Jorwe Culture.
The Jorwe Culture
: Jorwe situated on the banks of the River
Pravara has given its name to the Culture spread over 200 sites.
Two and the later one to 100-700 B.C have been distinguished. The
more significant features of the Jorwe Culture as a whole are
agricultural economy, sturdy wheel-made pottery, use of copper
and distinctive human burials, the pottery is painted with geomet-
ric designs in black over red, the most popular types being spouted
vessels and carinated bowls. Agriculture was the main stay of the
people. An important contribution of Jorwe Culture is irrigation,
they diverted the flood waters of the river at Inamgaon and stored
it for agriculture with the help of dams. The elaborate burial system
of Jorwe folk consisted of burying the adults in jars or pits inside the
house, while the children were buried in jars kept north-south, the
funerary goods in this case included copper objects, pots and toys.
MARINE ARCHAEOLOGY
POD
- Physical Oceanography Division
* NSMRI
- National Salt and Marine Research Institute
GOD
- Geological Oceanography Division
* NRSA
- National Remote Sensing Agency
COD
- Chemical Oceanography Division
* UNIV.
- Universities
OED
- Ocean Engineering Division
* BARC
- Bhabha Atomic Research Centre
ASI
- Archaeological Survey of India
* NIO
- National Institute of Oceanography
PRL
- Physical Research Lab
* ENV
- Environmental
NRLCCP
- National Research Lab for Conservation of Cultural Property