A journey from the necropolis of Gujarat’s Juna Khatiya to pre-Harappan era

Having flourished in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent during the third millennium BCE, the Indus Valley Civilisation (aka Harappan Civilisation) has been divided into three phases – pre-Harappan (3300-2500 BCE), mature Harappan (2600-1900 BCE) and late Harappan (1900-1300 BCE). Even though scholars have studied in detail the urban and the late-Harappan phases, there are not enough studies conducted on the early Harappan period. However, a set of new evidence in the form of burials and artefacts from Juna Khatiya, a remote village in the Kachchh district of Gujarat, opens a window to the pre-Harappan era.

Archaeologists have excavated early Harappan burials, ceramics and other artefacts from various sites in India, but the burial site in Juna Khatiya, scholars believe, is probably the biggest cemetery belonging to the early Harappan period excavated so far.

Interestingly, the excavation conducted in Juna Khatiya was accidental. In 2016, a team of archaeologists from University of Kerala was surveying some excavated sites in the Kachchh district, to know more about the architectural features and nature of ceramics and other artefacts. A village head who came to see the process of excavation informed the team about a nearby site where he had seen many potsherds and cave-like structures underground.

The team, led by SV Rajesh, went to Juna Khatiya with the village head. He was right. The team found around 500 burials there. A detailed exploration in 2019 brought to light significant evidence of the pre-Harappan period. The ceramic objects and other materials collected from the site, located on the right bank of river Gandi, according to SV Rajesh, indicate their pre-urban character of the Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC).

The evidence from the site was a turning point, as the burials were unique, dating back to the pre-Harappan period. Systematic surface surveys, conducted by the archaeologists from University of Kerala and KSKV Kachchh University, revealed cultural remains, ceramic potteries and vessels, belonging to the early Harappan phase of the IVC. “When we started doing the surface survey, we found stone burials in various sizes and shapes. But there was no indication or evidence of habitation nearby. However, the surface collection, which included potsherds, beads and vessels, yielded early Harappan Sindh type pottery, stone blades of chalcedony, blade cores, geometric and non-geometric tools and a large amount of lithic debitage,” said Rajesh, who is assistant professor at the Department of Archaeology, University of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuaram.

The explorations revealed close to 500 burials in the three nearby locations in Juna Khatiya. “The types of burials include extended inhumation, probable secondary burials, cremation and symbolic pot burials. The majority of the burials in the site were disturbed by erosion, soil removal and agricultural activities. A total of 70 were excavated at the site. Many of the burial structures were made of sandstone and shale and vary in size and shape. Some of the burial remains were found in rectangular pits cut into natural soil,” he said.

The skeletons are to be carbon-dated to check their age.

“The burial goods found in the pits include pottery vessels, whose number varied from a single one to a maximum of 19. Many of the burial structures or pits were devoid of skeletal remains. The orientation also differs. Some were found in north-south orientation and some south-west. The interesting fact about the burials is that you can’t see this type of structures in any other IVC sites,” said Rajesh, while speaking as part of an online lecture on “Pre-Urban Harappan Burials in Gujarat: New Evidence from Juna Khatiya” organised by the IIT Gandhinagar recently.

Rajesh and his team explored more than 70 burials in four localities in Juna Khatiya from 2019 to 2022. They found only a skeleton of an adult male without much damage in a burial pit. The rest were pieces of bones of human beings. There were tiny burials of children. A separate burial of cattle was also excavated. “Barring one trench, the remaining burials had human skeletons in dilapidated condition with teeth and remains of the skulls. Even though the orientation of the burials varied, the vessels appeared close to the portion of the leg in most burials. The structure and construction make these burials unique,” he said.

The IVC is one of the oldest civilizations of the world that flourished in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent (today’s India, Pakistan and Afghanistan) during the third millennium BCE. It was Charles Masson, a deserter from the East India Company, who was the first to describe the ruins of Harappa in his book, Narrative of Various Journeys in Balochistan, Afghanistan and the Punjab, in 1842, according to R Balakrishnan, author of Journey of A Civilization: Indus to Vaigai.

“In 1856, the East Indian Railway Company began constructing the 150-km long Lahore-Karachi railway line along the East Indus. Stumbling on the brick remains of Harappa, the company ended up using these bricks as ballast for the railway line. The Archaeological Survey of India was instituted in 1861 with the British army engineer and surveyor Alexander Cunningham being appointed as the director general. The first Harappan seal, discovered by Major Clarke sometime before 1872, was reported by Cunningham with an erroneous conclusion that it was ‘foreign to India,’” wrote Balakrishnan in Journey of A Civilization.

The lone seal could have heralded the discovery of a prehistoric civilization in the northwest of India. “But such a news had to wait until the tenure of John Marshall, whose period at the ASI (1902-1928) is considered to be the institution’s golden age,” he added.

In 1921-22, Harappa in the Montgomery district of Punjab was excavated by Daya Ram Sahni and Mohenjo-daro in the Larkana district of Sindh by Rakhal Das Banerji. Even though the IVC was discovered during the late 1800s, it became popular only after John Marshall announced its discovery in the “Illustrated London News” in September 1924. The IVC is well known for its urban planning and architecture, standardised system of weights and measures, various types of arts and crafts, extremely distinct pottery style (often employed to define a newly discovered site into a phase), metallurgy and a trade network spread over a vast geographical area, according to Charusmita Gadekar.

“After the partition of India into India and Pakistan in 1947, then well-known sites of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro fell under newly created Pakistan. Thus, most of the research during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s in India was devoted to filling the lacuna of identifying IVC sites in India. This resulted in the discovery of a large number of sites from modern states of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir,” wrote Charusmita Gadekar in the research paper titled “Early Harappan interaction between Sindh and Gujarat, as evidenced by lithic tools” that she co-authored with Rajesh SV, Abhayan G S and Anil Chavan which was published in the Journal of Lithic Studies.

The excavations in Juna Khatiya revealed other interesting objects: bangles and beads made of shell. There were broad and thin shell bangles in various sizes and shapes. “We have studied the features of the bangles and beads and dated these objects belonging to the early Harappan phase,” said Rajesh. However, the team couldn’t find any habitation site near the burials in Juna Khatiya. “We found some signs of small habitations near the burial site but that’s not enough. We have to explore and see if there are big habitation sites in the region and if we can find one, we can find more about the pre-Harappan phase using the objects from those sites,” he added.

Rajesh and his team completed the current year’s excavation in Juna Khatiya in October, with a detailed drone survey of the excavated area. “We don’t know whether the ancient humans who lived here were pastoralists or farmers. More excavations and studies will be conducted in the region to get a clear idea about who lived there and what was their occupation,” said Rajesh.