For the first time, the age of the artefactsof Neolithic era recovered from two important sites in northeast India has been unraveled. Indian scientists have found the age using the latest technique of optically stimulated luminescence dating.
‘It is now confirmed that the corded pottery and polished stone tools that were recovered during excavations in Daojali Hading in Dima Haso district of Assam in 1961 are 2, 700 years old and those recovered from Gawak Abri in Garo Hillsof Meghalayain 1999 are 2,300 years old”, says Dr. Sukanya Sharma of Indian Institute Of Technology (IIT), Guwahati. She and her colleague, Pankaj Singh had conducted the study.
Thestudy was conducted on an experimental basis with the new technique of optically simulated luminescence dating. The age of the sites were found to be well matched with the radio-carbon datesfrom other Neolithic sites of the region.
The excavation site at Daojali Hading occupies an important place in the archaeological history of India as the first evidence of an Eastern Asiatic Neolithic complex of double-shouldered Celts and cord-marked pottery in India was reported from there.The discovery had put Northeast Indiaon the Neolithic map of the world for the first time.However precise age of the artefacts were not known.
Antiquity of the site was hypothetically stated to be of the`late Neolithic phase’. Now, with the dating of the artefacts, this hypothesis has been proved and its antiquity has been established.
The dating of the Gawak Abri site in Garo Hills is also significant as Garo Hills has the highest density of prehistoric sites in North EastIndia.
With the new finding of the age of the two sites, it is confirmed that human beings, with the capacityto make pottery and polished stone tools were present in the north east India over two thousand years ago.
The researchers have published their study in the latest issue of science journal, Current Science. (India Science Wire)
