COMMUNITIES 3.1 Scope: an archaeological label, not a people “Chalcolithic” is used here in its conventional archaeological sense for assemblages in which copper appears alongside stone, bone and other technologies. It does not name an ethnicity, language, polity or biological population. In the Middle Ganga Plain, copper is often scarce, while black-and-red ware, microlithic or ground-stone tools, bone implements, wattle-and-daub architecture and farming evidence continue from earlier contexts. For that reason the term is most useful as a descriptive chronological label, not as a claim that metal transformed every aspect of life at once. 3.2 Why Chapter 3 begins with continuity rather than a “revolution” The excavated sequences do not support a simple staircase in which a Neolithic village abruptly becomes Chalcolithic after the arrival of copper. At Chirand, Chechar–Kutubpur and comparative sites farther south and west, older technologies persisted. House construction remained largely organic; microliths and bone tools continued; cultivation, fishing and animal use remained central. The significant change is therefore an enlargement and recombination of technological and economic repertoires rather than the instantaneous replacement of one system by another (Singh 2004; Archaeological Survey of India 1962–63, 1968–69). 3.3 Chronology is regional and must remain provisional There is no single Chalcolithic date range that can be imposed on the whole Middle Ganga Plain. Site sequences begin and end at different times, radiocarbon programmes are uneven, and older excavations were often dated primarily by ceramic comparison. Recent reassessments of Early Farming and Chalcolithic chronologies in the Ganga Plain emphasize precisely this diversity. Senuwar, for example, provides a well- studied comparative sequence from Early Farming into a developed agrarian/Chalcolithic phase, but its dates cannot simply be copied onto north-Bihar or Bhagalpur sites (Singh 2004; Pokharia and colleagues in Indian Archaeology 1990–91; comparative discussion in recent radiocarbon reassessments). 3.4 Black-and-red ware: useful marker, dangerous identity label Black-and-red ware (BRW) is a recurrent ceramic component in Chalcolithic and later horizons of the Middle Ganga Plain. Its surfaces reflect firing conditions that create dark and red zones on the same vessel. Archaeologists use its fabric, shape, finish, painted decoration and stratigraphic associations to compare assemblages. Yet BRW cannot be equated with one tribe, language or migration. Similar firing results and vessel traditions can occur across broad areas and long spans. In this volume pottery is therefore evidence for technology, food practice, chronology and interaction—not a shortcut to ethnic history. 3.5 Chirand: a long-lived riverine sequence Chirand remains one of the essential regional anchors because repeated excavation exposed a deep sequence in which farming, fishing, hunting, bone working, microlithic traditions and pottery can be followed through time. Early reports described black-and-red ware, microliths, ivory and bone objects together with a few copper pieces in the pre-NBPW horizon; later work added structural evidence including post-holes, hearths, burnt-earth floors and reed or bamboo impressions in clay. The assemblage shows GAJENDRA THAKUR technological addition rather than abandonment: copper occurs, but bone and stone remain economically important (Archaeological Survey of India 1962–63; 1968–69; Verma 2007). 3.6 Domestic architecture at Chirand The architecture associated with these levels was largely perishable. Mud plaster, reed or bamboo impressions, post-holes and burnt floors indicate houses whose superstructures would leave only fragmentary archaeological traces. Hearths and ash pits show repeated domestic activity. Such evidence is especially important for social history because it directs attention away from elite monuments toward ordinary residential investment, fuel use, food preparation and household maintenance. It also warns against assuming that the absence of masonry means an absence of stable settlement. 3.7 Chechar–Kutubpur: a Vaishali-district agrarian anchor The 1977–78 Archaeological Survey of India excavation at Chechar–Kutubpur, on the northern bank of the Ganga in present Vaishali district, described the earliest occupation as a developed rural economy in which agriculture, hunting and angling all mattered. Post-holes and clay chunks bearing reed impressions indicated wattle-and-daub houses plastered with husk-mixed earth. The excavators did not recover metal from the earliest phase in that season, a useful reminder that a community participating in a broader Chalcolithic ceramic horizon need not possess abundant copper (Archaeological Survey of India 1977–78: 17–18). 3.8 Chechar revisited: black-and-red ware, bone and copper A later ASI excavation at Chechar in 1988–89 documented black-and-red ware in coarse and fine varieties, red-slipped ware and burnished black-and-red ware in Period I, together with bone tools, arrowheads, points and copper pieces. The difference between the two excavation reports should not be forced into contradiction: they sampled different areas and phases of a large, eroding mound. Taken together, they show both the uneven archaeological visibility of small metal objects and the persistence of bone technology within the same broad cultural horizon (Archaeological Survey of India 1988–89). HISTORY OF MITHILA, VAJJI & ANGA — VOLUME II Figure 8 — Evidence matrix for selected Chalcolithic and early agrarian anchors. “Strong” indicates direct or repeatedly reported evidence in the cited excavation literature; “reported” indicates more limited evidence. Senuwar is included only as a Middle Ganga comparator. 3.9 Panda in Samastipur: direct evidence within the Mithila plain Panda (often written Pāṇḍ/Pand in excavation literature) is especially important because it lies in present Samastipur district, well inside the modern Mithila plain. Excavation assigned Period I to a Chalcolithic phase characterized by black-and-red ware, black-slipped, red and grey wares. Reported finds included stone hammers, axes and pestles, a copper hook, bone arrowheads, micro-beads and an earthen oven containing husk. This combination ties ceramic technology directly to domestic production and plant processing rather than to an abstract “culture” label (Choudhary 2005; Indian Archaeology 2001–02 and 2002–03). 3.10 The oven and husk at Panda: small evidence, large implications An oven mixed with husk is a modest find, but its evidentiary value is high. Husk may enter clay intentionally as temper or accidentally through processing debris; either way it places cereal-processing waste within the domestic activity zone. It does not by itself identify the cereal species or prove specialized craft production. What it securely supports is an agrarian household environment in which plant residues, heating installations and ceramic vessels were entangled in everyday work. 3.11 Oriup: the clearest Chalcolithic anchor in the Anga/Bhagalpur zone For the eastern zone later associated with Anga, Oriup in Bhagalpur district is a crucial stratified site. Trial excavation in 1966–67 revealed a Period I with black-and-red ware, an oven, a circular fireplace, a copper bangle, an archaic terracotta figurine and a microlithic core. The report also noted erosion probably connected with a river formerly flowing close to the site. Oriup therefore provides what Chapter 2 deliberately withheld: secure Chalcolithic occupation in the Bhagalpur zone without requiring an invented Neolithic ancestry for historical Anga (Archaeological Survey of India 1966–67). 3.12 Oriup and the river: settlement history includes erosion history The excavators’ observation that part of Oriup had been eroded is methodologically important. A river can remove early occupation, bury it under silt or preserve only discontinuous pockets. Apparent cultural “gaps” may therefore reflect geomorphology as well as human abandonment. The same caution applies across the Ganga, Gandak, Ghaghara and Kosi-influenced plains. Settlement maps must be read as maps of surviving and discovered deposits, not as complete maps of ancient population. 3.13 Champa: separating the later city from the earlier regional horizon Champa is indispensable to the later history of Anga, but its urban prominence should not be projected backward automatically. Excavations of the fortified settlement concentrated on NBPW and later structural phases; black-and-red ware occurred in association with some early rampart deposits, but the published sequence is not as straightforward a Chalcolithic anchor as Oriup. This volume therefore treats Oriup as the firmer source for a Chalcolithic Bhagalpur horizon and reserves Champa’s securely documented urban development for later chapters (Indian Archaeology 1970–71, 1971–72, 1972–73; Archaeological Survey of India, Indian Archaeology Today). GAJENDRA THAKUR 3.14 Copper was valuable because it was limited The rarity of copper objects at many Middle Ganga sites is itself historically informative. Metal had to be acquired from geological zones outside most alluvial settlements, whether through direct movement, exchange or down-the-line transfer. Small bangles, hooks, wires, points or fragments therefore need not indicate a “copper economy.” They show selective access to a material with properties different from stone, bone or wood. The social value of copper may have exceeded its numerical share in the toolkit, but status cannot be inferred without contextual evidence. 3.15 Stone and bone did not become obsolete Microlithic cores and flakes, ground stone tools, bone points, pins and arrowheads continue in contexts that also contain copper. This continuity is rational rather than technologically “backward.” Stone is durable and can be resharpened; bone is light and easily shaped; organic handles and shafts multiply the possible uses of both. A household choosing among materials was solving specific tasks, not moving through a textbook hierarchy from stone to copper to iron. Figure 9 — Composite technology rather than a copper revolution: stone, bone, copper, ceramics and organic materials remained complementary. 3.16 Agriculture: continuity, diversification and evidence control Chapter 2 established that rice and a wider cereal–pulse package were already present in parts of the Bihar early-farming record. Chalcolithic communities inherited and elaborated those practices. Direct botanical evidence is strongest at sites with systematic recovery programmes; elsewhere, husk impressions, grinding tools, storage facilities and settlement context provide indirect support. The correct inference is therefore graded by site: rich archaeobotanical reconstruction where plant remains exist, and more limited agrarian interpretation where only processing equipment or husk-tempered clay survives. HISTORY OF MITHILA, VAJJI & ANGA — VOLUME II 3.17 Senuwar as a comparator for crop scheduling, not a substitute for Mithila evidence Senuwar in the Kaimur region lies outside the Mithila–Vajji–Anga core, but its excavated Early Farming– Chalcolithic sequence is useful for understanding what a diversified agrarian economy can look like when plant remains are well preserved and studied. Archaeobotanical reports include rice, barley, wheat, millets and several pulses across the sequence. The site demonstrates the potential complexity of second-millennium BCE farming in the wider Middle Ganga world; it does not prove that Panda, Chechar or Oriup cultivated exactly the same crop package (Singh 2004; Indian Archaeology 1990–91). 3.18 Animals, fish and the persistence of broad-spectrum subsistence Agriculture did not eliminate hunting, herding or fishing. Chechar’s excavation report explicitly mentioned angling; Chirand preserves abundant aquatic and animal evidence; comparative sites show cattle and other domesticates alongside wild fauna. The economic logic of riverine plains encouraged such diversity. Crop failure, flood timing and seasonal labour could be buffered by fisheries, grazing, hunting and gathered resources. “Agrarian” therefore means agriculture became structurally important, not that every household lived by crops alone. Figure 10 — Seasonal coordination in an early agrarian riverine household. The diagram is analytical rather than a reconstruction of one excavated household. GAJENDRA THAKUR 3.19 Hearths, ovens and the archaeology of daily work Hearths at Chirand and Oriup and the oven reported at Panda bring the analysis to the scale of repeated daily labour. Fire transformed food, hardened clay, provided warmth, processed plant and animal materials and may have supported small crafts. Yet the same installation can perform several tasks across its life. Archaeology usually recovers the installation and residues, not a written label describing its function. Interpretation should therefore remain contextual and probabilistic. 3.20 Pottery and the social organisation of food The expansion of ceramic repertoires—bowls, dishes, jars, basins, dish-on-stand forms and other vessels— made possible different combinations of cooking, serving, storage and transport. Variation in fabric and finish may reflect intended use, skill, firing control and local taste. It does not automatically prove full-time potter castes or centralized workshops. Repetition and standardisation can indicate specialized knowledge, but the labour organisation behind production remains a separate question. 3.21 Beads and material circulation Stone, terracotta and other beads reported from several sites show that households invested labour in personal adornment and small portable objects. When raw materials are non-local, beads can also register circulation between ecological zones. Nevertheless, a bead is not a trade route. Without sourcing studies, quantities, workshop debris or distributional patterns, the safest conclusion is that Chalcolithic communities participated in material networks wider than a single settlement, while the precise mechanism—gift, exchange, itinerant craft or household travel—remains open. 3.22 Settlement growth without invented population totals Regional syntheses observe that Chalcolithic sites are more numerous than securely identified earlier farming sites in many parts of the Middle Ganga Plain. This may reflect population growth, longer-lived settlements, increased ceramic visibility, greater archaeological attention, or all four. It is reasonable to speak of expanding and more archaeologically visible agrarian settlement; it is not reasonable to convert site counts directly into ancient population numbers without systematic survey areas and correction for preservation bias. 3.23 Household labour and gender: what archaeology cannot assign safely Grinding grain, tending animals, fishing, making pottery, repairing houses and managing fires all required recurrent labour. Archaeology can reconstruct those tasks far more securely than it can assign them to men, women or fixed age groups. Later ethnographic patterns cannot simply be projected backward several millennia. Gendered labour undoubtedly existed, but its exact divisions must remain unknown unless burials, use-wear, spatial patterning or other context supplies stronger evidence. 3.24 Social differentiation: inequality is possible, hierarchy is not yet demonstrated Differences in access to copper, beads or particular vessel types may have carried social meaning, but the sites discussed here do not yet justify a detailed hierarchy of chiefs, castes or classes. Houses are incompletely exposed; burials are limited; storage capacities are rarely quantified; and prestige goods are few. The responsible position is therefore intermediate: these communities were socially organised and probably HISTORY OF MITHILA, VAJJI & ANGA — VOLUME II differentiated in multiple ways, but the form and permanence of inequality cannot be reconstructed with confidence. 3.25 Rivers, fields and the agrarian landscape The most durable economic transformation was not copper itself but the deepening relationship between households and managed landscapes. Fields, grazing areas, fishing places, fuel zones, clay sources and routes had to be revisited season after season. Floodplain agriculture demanded knowledge of water timing and soil moisture; river migration could reward one location and destroy another. Early agrarian history is therefore also environmental history—a continuous negotiation among cultivation, mobility and unstable alluvial terrain. 3.26 From Chalcolithic to iron-using and NBPW horizons Iron and Northern Black Polished Ware appear at different dates and with different local sequences across the Middle Ganga Plain. At some sites iron enters while black-and-red ware and older tool traditions continue. The transition is therefore best represented as overlap. This matters for the next chapters: early historic urbanisation did not begin on an empty landscape. It drew upon already settled agrarian communities, river knowledge, craft traditions and exchange networks while reorganising them at new scales. Figure 11 — From early farming to early historic society: continuity, overlap and uneven change rather than a universal technological break. 3.27 What this chapter establishes—and what it refuses to claim Four conclusions can be carried forward. First, Chalcolithic communities are securely documented in the Vaishali, Samastipur and Bhagalpur zones through Chechar, Panda and Oriup, while Chirand provides a closely related north-Bihar riverine sequence. Second, agriculture, fishing, hunting and animal management remained complementary. Third, copper enlarged rather than replaced older technologies. Fourth, settlement and material circulation became more archaeologically visible before the early historic urban horizon. None of this identifies the inhabitants as “Maithil,” “Vajjian” or “Anga” peoples in a later linguistic or political sense. Those identities belong to later evidence and must be demonstrated there. GAJENDRA THAKUR Table 3.1 — Selected Chalcolithic / early agrarian sites used in Chapter 3 Site / area Core evidence used Agrarian / Metal Interpretive here domestic evidence limit indicators Chirand, BRW, microliths, Plant economy Few copper Long sequence; Saran bone/ivory, hearths, from earlier pieces / phase dates and post-holes sequence; objects labels revised fish/animal remains; across campaigns houses Chechar– BRW, bone tools, Agriculture, None in Different Kutubpur / post-holes, reed- hunting and angling 1977–78 trenches/phases Chechar, impressed clay explicitly reported sample; should not be Vaishali copper collapsed pieces in 1988–89 Period I Panda, BRW, black- Oven with husk; Copper Detailed Samastipur slipped/red/grey domestic equipment hook botanical species ware, bone not established arrowheads, stone by the oven alone tools Oriup, BRW, oven, circular Domestic fire Copper Agrarian crop Bhagalpur fireplace, microlithic installations; river- bangle package not core edge settlement directly established in cited report Senuwar, Early Farming– Rich multi-crop Copper Comparator Rohtas Chalcolithic archaeobotanical objects in outside Mithila– (comparator) sequence, ceramics record Chalcolithic Vajji–Anga core; and tools phase cannot substitute for local evidence