The Hindu : `Pre-Harappan' culture: experts' help to be sought

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Mar 03, 2002

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`Pre-Harappan' culture: experts' help to be sought

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI Mar. 2. Even as the claim of the discovery of a pre-Harappan civilisation in the Gulf of Cambay off the coast of Gujarat has raised a controversy among archaeologists, the Ministry of Science and Technology has proposed to enlist the assistance of foreign experts in follow up research on the underwater site.

Highly-placed sources in the Ministry said that considering the importance of the find, efforts are under way to get some foreign experts to come over here and help in planning out the next course of research. The experts would be asked to work in collaboration with scientists at the Chennai-based National Institute of Ocean Technology, who had been instrumental in making the discovery.

It was on January 16 that the Science and Technology Minister, Murli Manohar Joshi, had announced the discovery of a "human settlement'' in the Gulf of Cambay that could be far older than any settlement found anywhere in the world.

According to Dr. Joshi, excavations have unearthed some artefacts, which indicated that there might have been human activity in the region around 7,500 B.C. The Sumerian, Egyptian and Harappan civilisations, which are presently considered the oldest civilisations, on the other hand, date back to 3,500 B.C., 3,000 B.C. and 2,500 B.C respectively.

The announcement has since triggered a controversy as while several prominent members of the archaeological community questioned the claim on the ground that the evidence for the antiquity of this site came only from one piece of wood, many others supported the claim on the ground that the wood piece had been found to have been cut through human intervention.

The Minister has already announced that a national team of experts belonging to the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT), Chennai, the National Institute of Oceanography, Goa, the Archaeological Survey of India, the Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad, the NGRI, the BSIP and specialists from universities has been formed for further investigations "both horizontally and vertically'', since the find had implications on the development of Indian civilisation and human development and "our history''. So far, the excavations have been carried out by scientists at the NIOT and they have gone down up to a depth of 40 metres.

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