Professor Vasant
Shinde is one of India’s leading field archaeologists. He is Vice-Chancellor of
Pune’s Deccan College and has headed a number of excavations around the
country, from Harappan sites in Gujarat and Haryana to Chalcolithic—Copper
stone age, 3000-2000 BCE—sites in Madhya Pradesh and the Deccan, to protohistoric
and early historic sites in Rajasthan and Maharashtra. He believes his current
research, based on new DNA evidence from the Harappan site of Rakhigarhi,
Haryana, will crack the mystery about who the Harappans really were and how the
modern Indian is related to them. Edited
excerpts from an interview:
How did you get
interested in archaeology when it wasn’t a popular choice for education or
employment?
The first I heard about archaeology was after I completed my B.A. in History from Nowrosjee Wadia College in Pune. One of my teachers suggested I do my masters in archaeology from Deccan College, Pune. I went and met the head of the archaeology department, a very well-known pre-historian called Professor V. N. Misra. He asked me, ‘Why do you want to do archaeology? There is no scope, no jobs. What will you do after MA?’ I was a little disappointed. I spoke to other teachers at the college who encouraged told me , ‘You should study archaeology because we are old and somebody has to take over. People like you should join’. But I decided to study archaeology because the college was very close to home. It was convenient as I was working night shifts in a company and had to go to college in the morning.
In my second year of
Masters in Deccan College I participated in the excavation at Inamgaon, 90 km
from Pune. Even now it is considered the best archaeological excavation
conducted in the country and the published report on that site is considered
the model excavation report. For the first time, most of the elements of what
we now call the new archaeology or scientific archaeology were applied here. I
was supposed to be there for a short period, but after convincing my teachers I
stayed there for a month. I was fortunate to learn under Prof Dhavalikar,
master of field archaeology and in the application of science in archaeology.
After my MA, I started my PhD and got a job in Deccan College in 1982. My PhD
was on the settlement pattern of early farming communities in the Tapi river
basin in northern Maharashtra. I wanted to find out what factors led early farmers to establish
settlements there and what was the Harappan influence on early farming
communities of the Deccan region.
When did your interest in the Harappan
civilisation begin?
After I joined Deccan College, I participated in more excavations. It was then that I specialised in excavation, in field archaeology. I learned all the techniques of excavation, exploration, and the application of various scientific methods. I also worked on early farming communities, what is known as the Chalcolithic communities in south India; they are called southern Neolithic people. Since Harappans had a lot of impact on these communities, I wanted to know more about the Harappans. So, Harappa, in a way, was like the continuation of my interest; it didn’t happen suddenly.
A lot of archaeologists, particularly in
India, think that unless you work on Harappan archaeology, you would not get
recognition. That is a general understanding, which, to some extent, is true as
well. But my interest in it was gradual; it was problem-oriented. I recognised
some research problems and that led me to Harappan archaeology.
site of Rakhigarhi, Haryana. Photo: Sriram Vittalamurthy. (Title Image) The DNA excavated from skeletons
at the Harappan site of Rakhigarhi holds definitive clues about the origins of Indians. Photo: Fountain Ink archives.
In what ways were
the early farming communities influenced by the Harappans?
We always thought the
early farming communities were impacted by the Harappans. We noticed that the
basic technologies were not developed in that region; they were probably from somewhere else. Who
could be the people who impacted them? The Harappans were right on the
border—from Chalcolithic (2000-70 BCE) Deccan to Gujarat in fact. Gujarat is
close to the Tapi basin. I excavated two sites there. One is called Kuntasi, a
small Harappan port on the Saurashtra coast, and the other is Padri, again on the coast. The difference
is that Kuntasi was a port and Padri a salt-farming settlement. The Harappans
started that. There is a lot of evidence about the beginnings of Harappan
culture.
A lot of people think the cities came
into existence suddenly. That is not the case. It was a long process and I
could discover its early phases, from which the urban phases evolved, for the
first time in Gujarat. The early phase dates to almost 4000 BCE. It was a local
culture that evolved. When they were evolving, they were in touch with other
regions where Harappan culture flourished. In the earlier Harappan stage, there
were a lot of original cultures and they were independent but still well
connected by trade. There was some impact on each other and that ultimately led
to the development of Harappan civilisation at some stage, maybe around 2600
BCE.
How big was the
area under Harappan civilisation, how diverse and inter-connected?
It was almost 2 million
sq. km, from Sindh, Balochistan, Punjab (both in India and Pakistan) and Jammu,
the entire Haryana region, western Rajasthan, Gujarat, including Kutch and
Saurashtra to the border of Maharashtra. That was the area of the Harappans.
In this area, there
were networks of different regional cultures. They were not homogeneous in the
initial stage. But they were in touch and started developing some common
elements. And then, there is a transformation. It could be noticed around 2600
BCE. After that we find some kind of uniform, integrated culture. In fact, from
2600 BCE to 2000 or 1900 BCE, for 600-700 years, it was developing. So when I
started this work, I developed a lot of interest. I could see some (Harappan)
elements coming from the Mewar region of Rajasthan. After working for seven to
eight years in Gujarat, I moved to Mewar, close to Udaipur, where I studied two
important sites—Balathal and Gilund.
In Balathal we could
see, like Padri, the early phase of Harappan culture; it was a regional
culture. One could also see a gradual development of Harappan elements at this
site. Elements not present in Gujarat were introduced at some stage from Mewar
region. Particularly, local pottery, which had some elements found in Gujarat,
fragments of that. Similarly, some Gujarat pottery is found in that region
also. So we could see that a lot of interaction happened.
In the developed phase
of that culture, we could see a lot of Harappan elements. For example, they
introduced bricks at some stage, proper Harappan bricks in the same ratio—1:2:3
or 1:2:4. Construction material was also similar to what Harappans used. They
started developing fortified settlements as well. The walls were broad at the
base—a Harappan style—and then they tapered upwards. Some pottery, purely
Harappan, was also found along with the local pottery. So a lot of Harappan
elements were developing there also.
It was almost 2 million sq. km, from Sindh, Balochistan, Punjab (both in India and Pakistan) and Jammu, the entire Haryana region, western Rajasthan, Gujarat, including Kutch and Saurashtra to the border of Maharashtra. That was the area of the Harappans.
Which elements are
basic to Harappan culture and help you identify the existence or influence of
Harappan culture? How far and wide was its impact in India?
The brick, the building, along with the seals and weights, these are common to all. Also, the typical Harappan terracotta figurines, they stand out along with terracotta bangles and terracotta triangular cakes. You don’t find them outside Harappa. Typically, when you find one set of bangles you know there is a Harappan element there. Or maybe it’s the site itself because these are classical elements associated only with that culture. And we find that impact till Karnataka. Harappans were connected with Karnataka. They sourced gold from the Hatti mines near Gulbarga.
That (gold resource)
was exploited by the Harappans but they did not come here (Karnataka). They had
contact with the locals. They were getting raw material from here and had the
technology to extract gold. This has been scientifically established. They also
had access to gold from Afghanistan and Iran. We have done chemical analysis of
Harappan gold and modern gold of Afghanistan and Iran. That gold is more pure,
24 carat. But in this part (Karnataka) it has silver elements. The gold
ornaments made with gold from Afghanistan and Iran crack because of purity.
Here, because of this mixture of silver, it is really considered to be good. So
the Harappans used this.
So, naturally, because
of the trade contracts, there is some Harappan element in the pottery found in
this region. It’s a very interesting story. It’s not that Harappans were
confined to that part (the north). The entire peninsular India was impacted by
Harappan culture.
In the popular
imagination, Harappans are associated only with the sites of Harappa and
Mohenjo Daro...
Yes, exactly. That is partly because these two sites were excavated on a very large scale by British archaeologists along with some Indian archaeologists. Most of the history we know today is based on the excavated remains from these two sites—Harappa and Mohenjo Daro. But after partition we have discovered a large number of settlements in India. In fact, nearly two-thirds of the Harappan sites are now on the Indian side. We have discovered nearly 2,000 sites, nearly 1,600 or 1,700 of which are located in this part.
What do we know
about the development of Harappan civilisation?
The work I did in Mewar and at Gilund was interesting because we discovered signs of Early Harappan and Mature Harappan civilisations. Until then, it was not clear how the early Harappans evolved. It was in Gilund that we found this evidence. At the base of the settlement, we found Mesolithic remains—the last of the hunter-gatherer people. These people were slowly converting into agricultural communities. It was very clear, this transformation, because we found two phases in the Mesolithic. In the early one, we found Mesolithic tools, mostly blade tools. In the second stage, we see some small structures, huts, and they also started making some crude pottery. That happened around 5000 BCE. From that, a proper early Harappan settlement developed. For the first time, it was established that the early Harappan evolved from the Mesolithic phase. In fact, we could see the evidence at the same site—we had the Mesolithic phase; on top of that was the early Chalcolithic and the developed Chalcolithic. We could clearly see the evolution of the culture there and the cultural changes. This work was done in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania.
The excavation of
Rakhigarhi is your most well known work. What led you there?
I had some research
problems. We were getting very early dates for the Early Harappan culture from
some sites but there was a lot of criticism that the dates might have been
contaminated. Unless we got similar dates from several other sites, people
wouldn’t be convinced. That was the view of most archaeologists then. So we accepted the
challenge. Farmana was one of the sites
excavated from that point of view. Then I excavated a site called
Girawad, Mitathal and then came to Rakhigarhi. I studied the Rajasthan elements
and then I moved towards Haryana in 2006. I have been moving state by state and
this (Rakhigarhi) was the final destination.
There were a couple of
reasons for moving to Haryana after my work at Gilund. One, it was always
considered the epicentre of Harappan culture because when we look at the
distribution of Harappan sites, the majority are located in this part.
Secondly, a lot of historians and archaeologists believe this was the ancient
or Rig Vedic Saraswati region. We wanted to understand whether the Rig Vedic
text is reflected in the actual culture in that part. We wanted to find the
correlation between textual data and archaeological data. Thirdly, a lot of
sites were getting destroyed. In 1965, I remember, there were nearly 450 sites
discovered and reported. But the earlier documentation was not perfect. So I
wanted to visit the sites and check the location and also the relation between
different sites.
When I reached there,
to my utter surprise there were hardly 40 or 50 sites left. Close to 400 sites
had been destroyed.
Destroyed?
Yes. The archaeological site is in the form of a mound and the height depends on the duration of occupation and activities there. The mound is above ground level. An archaeological site contains a high percentage of phosphate because of the decomposition of organic matter and that is not good for crops. Farmers know that, so they want to remove the mounds and get to the natural layer. That is how sites are destroyed. And, in Haryana, every inch of land is precious, it is very fertile. They wanted to convert the sites to agricultural fields and in that process most of the sites were destroyed. We cannot stop it because it is private land. The government should take over this land but that is not happening. That was a major issue.
I was working at
Farmana, Rakhigarhi is hardly 30 km away. So I frequently went from Farmana to
Rakhigarhi. I used to take my students and they would get to know about the
formation of the site; they learnt a lot from the site. I worked at Farmana six
years and every year, I saw more damage to the site, more encroachment and I
thought that one day the site will be destroyed. I thought if we started our
archaeological research there perhaps the destruction would stop. Even though
part of the site is protected by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) with
a fence and security guards, people are still encroaching on it. The entire
village is located on top of the site and nearly 10,000 people live on top of
the major part of the site. Even today, you can see paddy fields there.
Why is Rakhigarhi
an important Harappan site?
Rakhigarhi is a very
good candidate for studying the development of the Harappan cities and towns.
It is ideal because it has a very thick deposit of early Harappan and also of
the Harappan civilisation or mature Harappan levels here. We know mature
Harappan evolved from early Harappan so we can study that evolution properly at
this site. And since this is a proper city we can learn how the transformation
from village culture to urban culture happened. It is the biggest Harappan
city, much bigger than Mohenjo Daro. And the research we have done reveals that
the site has much potential to provide us with clues to understand various
facets of the Harappan world which were not until today understood.
You can study the role
of the local cultures in the development of the Harappan element at this
particular site. Also about the role sites like Rakhigarhi played in the
Harappan socioeconomic organisation. What roles have sites like this played?
Apart from this, it also has a big cemetery, a huge treasure. From that we can
try to understand who the Harappan people were. What was the composition of the
population? What is their relation with
the contemporary population? Are the modern people descendants of the earlier
population?
You have conducted
DNA analyses on the Harappan skeletal remains. What was the idea behind it?
After this, I
established contact with some South Korean scientists from Seoul National
University, which has one of the best forensic science departments in the world
and some of them work on ancient DNA. They had worked on 400-to 500-year-old
mummies discovered in Korea, successfully extracting DNA from them and establishing
their genealogy and genetic aspects. They asked us to take precautions during
excavation as modern DNA can contaminate ancient DNA. If people come to the
site in large numbers, there will naturally be contamination. And even if we
are able to extract DNA, we would not be sure if it’s modern or ancient DNA.
They told us to excavate one burial at a time and use separate instruments for
each. They asked us to wear masks, gloves and surgical gowns before beginning
the excavation.
That is exactly what
we did at Rakhigarhi. We started the excavation very quietly, only two or three
students working on the site. The excavation usually happens in the winter when
there is a standing crop. The farmer on whose land the cemetery is located was
growing mustard and wheat. We started excavating in the middle of the mustard
field and since mustard grows really tall, the excavation was not visible from
the outside. We excavated one burial at a time, properly documenting it and
immediately packing and transporting it to a laboratory in Pune. We followed
this procedure for all burials for two years in which we excavated about 40
graves. We collected sufficient data for DNA analysis.
I wanted to make sure
the entire process was done in India. We involved a scientist from the Centre
for Cellular and Molecular biology (CCMB) Hyderabad, Niraj Rai, who is working
on ancient DNA. We cleaned the samples as per their norms and transported them
to Hyderabad. In the initial stage, we failed miserably again. Only five of the
14 turned out to be potential samples. There was no DNA in the rest.
But the five samples
became very important. Rai collaborates with a well known scientist at Harvard
called David Reich, who has developed a new technique for extracting DNA from
the petrous bone. We used this method to extract DNA from the five samples.
Harvard has also developed a technique to separate modern DNA from ancient DNA.
So even if there is contamination we can identify which is modern and which one
ancient.
We made three sets of
the samples. Rai tested one set and found some faint signature there. We got it
sequenced by a private firm in Bengaluru and analysed the data. The data gave
some hint of the possible outcome. We supplied the second set to the Koreans to
confirm whether our presumptions were compatible with their findings. But they
weren’t successful in finding a signature. We supplied the third set to David’s
(Reich) lab and he found a very strong DNA signature. Also, his findings were
not very different from what we had found. This happened last year. We decided
that we would go for the publication of the results because at least we are
getting some hint.
What does the DNA
study from Rakhigarhi say about the genetic ancestry of the Harappans?
One thing is clear,
people have not come from outside. It is local development. We have sufficient
data to establish that it was the local people. That much I can reveal at this
stage. Their contact with the contemporary population forms part of the paper
we are finalising now.
We had a hypothesis
when we had finished the first part, on the basis of the faint signature. But
later we got very strong signatures in two more samples and that gave us a
completely different perspective. Our hypothesis which was on the basis of
actual archaeological data is now supported by scientific data.
We want to ensure that
the results are published in a high impact international journal. We want to
reveal the results only after they are published and accepted by the scientific
community. We published the first part of the results which were not properly
supported by data, but now we have sufficient data.
One thing is clear, people have not come from outside. It is local development. We have sufficient data to establish that it was the local people. That much I can reveal at this stage. Their contact with the contemporary population forms part of the paper we are finalising now.
What can you share
about the genetic ancestry of the Harappans?
We are now very close to cracking the mystery about who the Harappan people were and how the modern people are related to them. Also, what the Harappans’ relations with contemporary populations were. The paper we’re publishing in a couple of months about whether the Harappans were local people or came from outside is based on scientific data; we are considering both the genetic data and the archaeological data. We discovered the Harappan civilisation exactly 100 years ago. In 100 years, this is going to be the biggest breakthrough.
So, what
implications does it have for the Aryan migration theory? Based on your study,
can we say that it’s not valid?
Yes, you can say that. There is no archaeological data to prove it. Aryan migration theory is bakwas (rubbish). Those advocating this theory should provide the data on which the theory is based.
What is interesting is
that when we want to talk about culture or people, we have to consider both
archaeological and genetic data. This has not been done so far. We propose some
hypothesis that people came from outside and they occupied the north-western
part of the subcontinent. They are called Aryans. Max Mueller floated this idea
and we have been following it for 70-80 years. But there is no basis for it.
But now the scientific
data will prove whether people came from outside or not. It’s important to
recognise the difference between migration and movement of people. Movement was
always there, like today. Interaction. People move from one region to another
for trade. So mixing can happen that way. I’m just giving you a hint about what
type of evidence we are getting. That movement is very clear in the genetic
study also.
If your genetic data shows something and
archaeological data shows something else, how do you explain that? They have to
corroborate. Suppose we are getting evidence of central Asian presence there,
but it is not showing in the genetic population, how do you explain that? We
have to consider them both. This is what we are doing.
Did you find any
correlation between the Rig Vedic text and the archaeological evidence found in
this region?
We are working on that. At this stage I strongly feel that Rig Vedic texts are talking about Harappa only. The description in the texts refers frequently to the river Saraswati. Most historians, archaeologists and geologists agree that the modern Ghaggar was the ancient Saraswati. Then it talks about the flourishing cities and towns in the past. The beginning of towns and cities occur in the Harappan levels and then it continues in the subsequent periods also. When we look at data from this Ghaggar region we have flourishing Harappan cities, and settlements but no cities of a later period are found here, not even mediaeval cities. Only early cities are found. Later, there may be settlements here and there but no big cities. Suppose they are discussing cities and towns probably they are discussing Harappan cities and towns.
So do you believe
that Rig Veda is not talking about the Aryan but the Harappan?
Exactly. This has
happened because of the misinterpretation of Rig Vedic texts and that is not
based on any scientific analysis. It has misled us for so many years. That is
causing so many problems in fact because of the misinterpretation of the data.
One should be clear, historians and archaeologists should be careful about the
interpretation of data. If they don’t have sufficient supporting data, or
scientific data to support their hypothesis they should not really interpret it
that.
Why is it important
or significant to know who the Harappan people are?
It is not that
significant. It is not necessary to know who the Harappan people are, but what
is clear is that they are the founders of Indian culture. Most traditions
started by the Harappans continue till today. There is no change. Only the
media might have changed. Even today people are making a lot of earthen pots in
Harappan shapes. Sometime we can see that even when they switch to metal pots.
The pots retain Harappan shapes. There is a continuity even in traditions like
yoga. We have strong evidence for yoga being practised through figurines found
in the Harappan levels. In villages of Haryana the modern house plan is a copy
of the Harappan house plan that existed in the same region. Since the region
has extreme weather, you can see the houses have thick mud walls, there is an
open courtyard and the rooms are in the side. All of this is the Harappan plan
which continues in the modern village at the same site.
You have been
working as a field archaeologist since 1977. How much has field archaeology
changed since then?
Unfortunately, it is
going backwards. The first training course was in 1944, formal training for
archaeologists in which most of the well known archaeologists of the country
were trained by the British archaeologist Sir Mortimer Wheeler at Taxila, now
in Pakistan. After that, no one has tried this. Individually, we are doing this
here and there. One of our aims is that we want to set up a field training
school at the site of Rakhigarhi, where students are invited and trained
properly not only in excavation but also interpretation and classification of
data, to figure out what scientific tools they can employ for extracting more
information from the archaeological data. That is not being done in the country
and because of that a lot of young people are losing interest in field
archaeology. That is the unfortunate part.
You have helped set
up several international museums. What do you think Indian museums lack that
they fail to interest people? What should they be doing?
In India we treat museums like godowns where we store artefacts. We don’t make them interesting. In the museum that we are planning at Rakhigarhi we not only want to display objects but also tell their stories, the messages they convey and what we can learn from them. This is not done in our museums. We are not making history interesting. It’s become a case of ‘this is what happened in the past’. Even in the case of Harappans, suppose students are told that they built big house, big cities, the next question they ask is: so what? We will not be able to explain the ‘so what?’
We treat history as just another subject which has no relevance or meaning. We see a beautiful figurine, that’s all. We see that they developed copper or brass technology, that’s all, we don’t go beyond that. That is the reason we don’t appreciate museums. You have to make them interesting to attract people. That is being done in other countries. I have worked with many international museums in Europe and in Japan. Even if they don’t have much, they have an interesting story around it which makes people want to go there. And that story keeps changing. It’s not that they develop one story and that remains for 10 years. Every six months they change the stories. We are not doing that here.
is a freelance journalist and photographer.
