Excavations At Inamgaon: Volume- 1 (Part- 1)

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Since the discovery of the Chalcolithic culture at Jorwe and Nasik in 1950 and subsequently at Nevasa, we were in search of a site which would provide us the evidence of houses as also the settlement and the subsistence patterns of the early farming communities of Maharashtra. In fact it was with this idea that the large scale excavations were undertaken at Nevasa in 1959.60, but the earliest settlement there was found to be considerably disturbed. Besides, there was about 7 m of cultural debris accumulated over the Chalcolithic deposit, making it difficult to reach the earliest cultural level in all the excavated area because of the expense of time and money involved in doing so. We could not excavate horizontally even Chandoli and Sonegaon which, though single culture sites, were found to be considerably small and much disturbed. We were, therefore, extremely happy when the ancient site at Inamgaon was brought to our notice by Shn R.L. Bhide of University of Poona (now retired) in 1968. Shri Bhide, though a layman, took keen interest in archaeology and has carried out explorations in the region around Poona. In the course of his explorations in Sirur taluka a close relative of his informed him about the ancient site at Inamgaon, Shri Bhide collected some pottery from the site and brought it to us. We could immediately recognize the Chalcolithic pottery which was similar to that from our excavations at Jorwe, Nasik, Nevasa and other related sites in Maharashtra. In order, therefore, to determine the suitability of the site for excavation Professor M.K. Dhavalikar and Dr. Z.D. Ansari visited it in September 1968. It was observed that the ancient site was quite extensive and was occupied only during the Chalcolithic period. Thus, it was ideal for a horizontal excavation which could throw light on the life style of the early farmers of Maharashtra. Accordingly, large scale excavations were conducted for twelve seasons (from 1968-71, 1972-74, 1975 and 1977-83) because we were convinced that the ancient site, littered as it was with innumerable potsherds and other artifacts, was undisturbed since its desertion by the Chalcolithic people. There were no finds of the post-Chalcolithic period as at Nevasa. Here was an opportunity to get what we wanted, viz. the house plans and other details of the Chalcolithic period. Further, to get a clear idea of each house it was decided to record its contents separately. We were able to enlarge upon our previous knowledge gained at Nevasa and other Chalcolithic sites. Twelve seasons of excavations have enabled us to form some idea of, among other things, the settlement and the subsistence pattern, the socio-economic conditions and the religious beliefs of the people. We are happy to record that our objective was amply fulfilled since we could recover the ground plans of 134 houses of the three different cultural periods and a variety of artifacts which could be related to the residential or activity areas and study them in their proper context. The present report is thus an account of our twelve seasons' work at the ancient site of Inamgaon which was planned by Prof. H.D. Sankalia and was excavated, for the first four seasons, by him and Dr. M.K. Dhavalikar and Dr. Z.D. Ansari until his retirement in 1973 after which the work was continued by Dr. Dhavalikar and Dr. Ansari for eight seasons upto 1983.

**Contents and Sample Pages**