Neolithic Culture In West Bengal- With Special Refrence To South And South-East Asia (An Old & Rare Book)

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The Neolithic culture in West Bengal never received proper attention of scholars work ing in this specific field, although the initial discovery of such Neolithic tool was made as long back as in 1867. Dani made a break through in 1961 when he published his Pre history and Protohistory of eastern India. The book basically deals with the Neolithic problem in eastern India. But unfortunately he focussed his attention on Assam and south-east Asian countries while Bengal/ Bihar/Orissa were only marginally touched upon. Since then no serious work on Neo lithic culture in West Bengal has been made. Only sporadic reports of Neolithic tools have been made either in Archaeological Review or in paper form from time to time. The situation being so, there was a complete gap in our knowledge about the Neolithic struc ture and character in West Bengal. The present volume on Neolithic culture in West Bengal with special reference to south and southeast Asia will fill up this long gap. In the absence of any excavation of Neolithic site, the present work is entirely based on typo-technological analysis. The book contains seven chapters. Chapter one deals with the concept, definition and fac tors leading to domestication while chapter two gives an over-view of the Indian Neo lithic culture. Chapter three deals with geol ogy and geomorphological features. Nature and distribution of sites have been discussed in chapter four. Chapter five deals with the classification of tools while chapter six deals with raw materials and technology. Finally chapter seven presents a comparative study with the neigh bouring regions. The present volume would be a valuable guide to those working in the field of Neolithic culture of eastern India.

Asok Datta already had to his credit degrees of M.A. in Archaeology and M.A. in Ancient Indian History and Culture, when a ph.D. was conferred upon him by the University of Calcutta for his dissertation work on "Pebble-Core element in India - A study on geo-cultural variation", in the year 1981. In 1982 he was awarded a Fellowship by the West German Government to study modern methods of Archaeology in Germany. At present he is working on a project relating to Prehistory, particularly Upper Palaeolithic culture in Midnapur. The project is financed by the Indian Council for Historical research. Palaeo history of man and his culture published in the year 1982 was his first book. He has also edited the book Studies in Archaeology in 1991.Ready for press are Pre history of West Bengal and Chalcolithic culture in West Bengal. He is also an Associate Editor of 'Man and his culture - A resurgence. In addition, several papers have already been published in various research journals. Dr. Datta teaches Archaeology in the Department of Archaeology, Calcutta University.

The history of prehistoric research in West Bengal is more than a century year old. The inception of such study was made by V. Ball in the year 1865 with the discovery of few Palaeolithic tools from Bengal, and ever since Palaeolithic tools have been found from different parts of the state specially the Chhotonagpur plateau fringe area. The distribution of Prehistoric artifacts show that these tools are basically confined to fringe area with marginal extension in the western plain between the fringe and the Bhagirathi/Hooghli rivers. It is only after the post-Pleistocene period that the Himalayan Foot Hills covering Kalimpog region was occupied by our Neolithic ances tors. This shows that only a small portion of the total landmass was inhabited by our prehistoric ancestors, while the vast majority of the land remained unoccupied till the emergence of the full fledged agricultural communities during the middle of the second mil lenium B.C. The earliest evidence about the Neolithic occupation in Bengal comes from Logan who collected the first Neolithic tool from Raniganj in the year 1867 (References in Coggin Brown, 1981). Initially Logan could not identify its cultural significance as he thought it as Palaeolithic tool. But, Coggin Brown subsequently recognised it as a Neolithic polished celt. The available literatures however suggest that it was the first Neolithic tool discovered in West Bengal. A few years later, during 1887, W.H.P. Driver made a substantial collection of Neolithic tools from Bengal/Bihar and Orissa. These were published later by J. Wood Mason (1887). Celt being the diognastic tool type of this region constitutes the major collection of Driver. In 1904 E.H.G. Walsh (1904) explored Darjeeling and Sikkim regions and collected a large number of Neolithic implements from the hill slopes of Kalimpong, and since then the archaeologists have been reported of the discovery of the Neolithic tools from different parts of the plateau fringe area and the foot hills of Himalayas from time to time. This has indeed opened up a new horizon of prehistoric research in West Bengal. But it was not until 1940 that serious scientific study of Neolithic culture in West Bengal was undertaken. The inception of such analytical study on Neolithic culture in West Bengal was made by Chakladar (1940. 1941, 1952), who studied the Neolithic culture of this region from its different perspectives, that is in association with pottery, crop pattern and domestication of animals along with their associated problems. D. Sen (1948) further pursued this problem and explored different parts of West Bengal. He collected a large number of Neolithic implements from Bamal in Midnapur. He tried to reconstruct the geological horizon of the celt bearing strata at Bamal. This was followed by extensive explorations conducted by V.D. Krishnaswami (1959-60). Lal (1955-56), D. Mitra (1957-58) etc. The were subsequently followed by scholars like P.C. Dasgupta (1965-66) and Asok K. Ghosh (1961). The explorations and ex ploratory diggings undertaken by these scholars in different parts of West Bengal have opened up a new vista in the neolithic research of this region. Ghosh collected a large number of tools. Dasgupta (1971) explored Kalimpong region and collected not less than 400 Neolithic implements. Since then many scholars have worked in this direction, the most important of which have been D.P. Aggrawal (1982), B.K. Thapar (1985), K.D. Banerjee (1987). Despite serious research undertaken by archaeologists and scholars no comprehen sive account of the Neolithic culture pattern of West Bengal has been available.

"Prehistory and Protohistory of eastern India" was an important path finder in this connection. This was followed by two detailed works one by V.D. Krishnaswami (1960), on Neolithic pattern of India and the second by T.C. Sharma (1960, 1980, 1981) on Neolithic culture of Assam. But Dani (1981) based his analysis on the materials collected from Bengal/Bihar and Orissa as a whole. Hence his analyses did not highlight specifically on the nature, shape and character of the Neolithic culture in West Bengal. Besides his materials were limited upto the collection of late sixties and thus were inadequate and do not represent a true picture of the Neolithic culture in West Bengal. Indeed the discovery of a number of new sites within the last three decades has changed completely the total picture of the Neolithic culture in West Bengal. Dani in his typological classification of tools did not follow a standard pattern of classification in regard to the shape, cutting edge, shape of butt end, cross-section. Instead of giving a proper classification his classification has unnecessarily complicated the situation. Sharma (1981) seems to have hold a similar view when he writes that "The typological classification of the garo hills Neoliths proposed by previous writers (including Dani) appear to have been based on ill defined typological features, which resulted in the creation of innumerable types and varieties which are not only typologically inaccurate but also inappropriate...". Be that as it may there is no doubt that the works of Dani (1981) should be considered as one of the pioneering work on Neolithic culture of the eastern India which has initiated genuine and scientific research spirit on the Neolithic cultures. The researchers working in Prehistory of eastern India are indeed indebted to Dani (1981) for his path finding work. Prehistoric research taken up by Thapar (1985), Sharma (1981) and Banerjee (1987) have given correct guidelines to the scholars working in the I may mention in this context that though many of these works have marginally touched upon the Neolithic culture of West Bengal, but the present author acknowledges with gratitude that this work has been possible because of the fundamental works done by the previous scholars as pioneering ones. If some lacuna has been left up by these scholars in their work due to non availability of the materials, my humble work is extended to fill up this gap.

**Contents and Sample Pages**