Ochre Coloured Pottery culture

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The Ochre Coloured Pottery culture (OCP), is a 3rd millennium BC Bronze Age culture of the Ganga-Yamuna plain. It is a contemporary to, and a successor of the Indus Valley Civilization. The OCP marks the last stage of the North Indian Bronze Age and is succeeded by the Iron Age black-and-red ware and painted-gray ware cultures. Early specimens of the characteristic ceramics found near Jodhpura, Rajasthan date to the 3rd millennium,this site of Jodhpura is in district Jaipur and must not be confused with the city of Jodhpur, and the culture reaches the Gangetic plain in the early 2nd millennium.

H. C. Bharadwaj in his work Aspects of Ancient Indian Technology, Motilal Banarsidass, New Delhi 1979 had established that copper hoards, being found in the same layers as Ochre Coloured Pottery by B. B. Lal, belonged to 1100-800 BC, but K.N. Dikshit in: Essays in Indian Protohistory, 1979 suggested a date from 2650 to 1180 BC based on thermoluminescent method.

On the other hand R. C. Gaur excavations at Lal Qila gave also a thermoluminiscent date for OCP in time bracket of 2030 and 1730 BC with a mean date of 1880 BC.

There are even a claim of earlier dates by M. D. N. Sahi: "...settlements of the OCP-Copper Hoards culture, datable between 3700-3000 B.C., as discussed by the present author elsewhere, are found existing in the districts of Allahabad (Sringaverapura and Mirapatti) and Varanasi (Kamauli)." (Sahi's paper "Neolithic Syndrome of the Ganga Valley" at National Seminar on the Archaeology of the Ganga Valley, December 2004).

It is worth to mention the work of archaeometallurgists R. Balasubramaniam, T. Laha and A. Srivastava who analyzed a copper hoard piece along with an Ahar culture copper one at the Department of Materials and Metallurgical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur in 2003, publishing their conclusions in the paper "Long term corrosion behaviour of copper in soil: A study of archaeological analogues".

Also Deo Prakash Sharma published a work called Newly Discovered Copper Hoard, Weapons of South Asia, Delhi, 2002 in which he establishes a time between 2800 and 1500 BC for copper hoards based on analysis of copper implemets in the National Museum, New Delhi: "Till today around 5031 copper hoard implements have been reported from 197 sites mostly from Gangetic plains among which 193 are in National Museum collection. We have fixed date of copper hoards from circa 2800 to 1500 B.C. and these could be divided into two groups as follows (A) North Eastern Indian (B) Ganga-Yamuna doab and Western India. The technology of western group B is of a distinctive and advanced type and is influenced by the Harappans...The anthropomorphic figure of copper hoard is a cult object and a symbol of good omen. The lugged shouldered axes and weed chisels are a new type in copper hoard implements. The shouldered axes show their origin from South East Asia via North-East India and Middle Ganga plain. The copper hoard implements and OCP ceramic are present in stratified deposits of Ganeshwar, Jodhpura, Mithathal, Madarpur, Saipai and Khatoli...Copper hoard implements of western group show genetic relationship with Harappans" (Deo Prakash Sharma 2002).

Copper Hoards refer to different assemblages of copper-based artefacts in the northern areas of the Indian Subcontinent. These are believed to date largely to the 2nd millennium BC. Few derive from controlled excavations. Different regional groups are identifiable: southern Haryana/northern Rajasthan, the Ganges-Jumuna plain, Chota Nagpur and in Madhya Pradesh, each with their characteristic artefact types. Initially the copper hoards were known mostly from the Ganges-Jumuna doab and most characterisations dwell on this material.

Characteristic hoard artefacts southern Haryana/northern Rajasthan and include certain, flat axes (celts), harpoons double axes, antenna-hilted swords etc. The doab has a related repertory. That of the Chota Nagpur area is far different and the finds seem to be ingots.

The artefacts seem to be votive in character.

The raw material can have derived from a variety of sources in Rajasthan (Khetri), Bihar/West Bengal/Orissa (especially Singhbhum) as well as Madhya Pradesh (Malanjkhand). Some scholars regard the OCP culture as late or impoverished Harappan culture, while other scholars see the OCP as an indigenous culture that is unrelated to Harappan culture. V.N. Misra (in S.P. Gupta 1995: 140) regards the OCP as "only a final and impoverished stage of the Late Harappan culture" and designates this phase as "Degenarate Harappan".

Together with the Cemetery H culture and the Gandhara Grave culture, the OCP is considered by some scholars a factor in the formation of the Vedic civilization.

Archaeological cultures associated with Indo-Iranian migrations (after EIEC). The Andronovo, BMAC and Yaz cultures have often been associated with Indo-Iranian migrations. The GGC, Cemetery H, Copper Hoard and PGW cultures are candidates for cultures associated with Indo-Aryan movements.

[edit] References

Sharma, Deo Prakash, 2002. Newly Discovered Copper Hoard, Weapons of South Asia (C. 2800-1500 B.C.), Delhi, Bharatiya Kala Prakashan,182 p.
Yule, P. 1985. Metalwork of the Bronze age in India. C.H. Beck, Munich ISBN 3-406-30440-0
Yule, P./Hauptmann, A./Hughes, M. 1989 [1992]. The Copper Hoards of the Indian Subcontinent: Preliminaries for an Interpretation, Jahrbuch des Römisch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums Mainz 36, 193-275, ISSN 0076-2741
Gupta, S.P. (ed.). 1995. The lost Sarasvati and the Indus Civilization. Kusumanjali Prakashan, Jodhpur.