Earliest Rice May Have Come From India

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The rice material

MEERA VOHRA

 

TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ SUNDAY, JUNE 15, 2003 02:17:12 AM ]

 

Contrary to popular perception that China and Japan were the earliest cultivators of rice, cultivation of the crop might have well begun in India.

 

Recent excavations at Jhusi by the Department of Ancient History, Culture and Archaeology, University of Allahabad, has revealed that this area had become the nuclear region of rice cultivation during the Neolithic phase.

 

“The Chinese and Japanese have traced the cultivation of rice, according to the revised chronology, to 9000 BC, while here it could have been earlier or at the same period but definitely not later,” says Prof Om Prakash, Head of the Department and Coordinator of CAS Scheme of UGC.

 

 

The excavation has also given the lie to the myth that the Gangetic region was a land of dense jungles. According to Vedic literature, this jungle was burnt by Videgh Mathav right from the banks of the Saraswati up to that of the Sadanira in Bihar and the whole track, for the first time, was subjected to agricultural operation that went along simultaneously with Aryan colonisation.

 

 

”Agriculture in fact was known and widely practiced in this alluvial region right from the Neolithic times, much before the advent of the so called Aryans,“ says Prof Om Prakash.

 

 

Fossil of animals like the cow, sheep, goat, boar and barasingha indicate that the area was characterised by grassy lands with few trees but not dense forests. Marshy lands and lakes also seem to have been present. Fish definitely constituted an important item of their diet.

 

 

The excavations at Jhusi, that have helped in discovering nearly 1.5 meters of Neolithic deposit below the Chalcolithic phase, is significant since it presents the proof of cultural continuity from the Mesolithic, through the Neolithic to the Chalcolithic ages, which again continued into the historical period down to the time of Buddha and further upto the early medieval period.

 

 

Earlier, the only indications of Mesolithic culture were available from 200 sites in the mid-Gangetic plain but the Neolithic phase was conspicuous by its absence. It was deduced that there was a cultural break after the Mesolithic age in this region and the settlers of the Chalcolithic phase at Jhusi and other sites were probably not natives of this place.

 

 

“But the jigsaw puzzle has been solved now by these excavations that also trace the antiquity of Allahabad in an unbroken manner to the Mesolithic times,” says Dr JN Pal heading the excavation team that comprises of Dr MC Gupta, Dr KS Saraswat and Dr AK Pokharia. The Neolithic phase at Jhusi is characterised by hand made pottery, bone tools, bone arrowheads, fish and animal bones and stone tools.

 

 

A big structure that might have been used as hearth-cum-pottery-kiln has also been found.

 

Prof Om Prakash says, “There is also evidence that the area was marked by a big fire caused by either natural calamity or invasions around 450 BC. That probably put to end the things here.”