Material Remains of Indian History

The material remains of Indian history are the physical objects and structures left behind by past civilizations, serving as vital sources for reconstructing India’s ancient and medieval past. These remains include archaeological sites, monuments, inscriptions, coins, tools, pottery, sculptures, and everyday objects used by people across different periods. Unlike literary sources, material remains provide direct and tangible evidence of historical developments, helping historians understand the social, economic, religious, and cultural life of earlier societies.

Material Remains of Indian History

Material Remains of Indian History

Introduction

Material remains are the physical evidences of the past that help historians reconstruct the history of India. These include monuments, archaeological sites, inscriptions, coins, tools, pottery, sculptures, and other artifacts left behind by ancient societies. Unlike written records, material remains provide direct and reliable information about the everyday life, culture, economy, technology, and beliefs of people who lived in different historical periods.

Use of archaeology

The methods of archaeology help us to recover the material remains of the past, relating to ancient, medieval, and modern periods of our history. In India and many other countries, archaeology is used to study prehistory and ancient history. Prehistory is concerned with the period for which there are no written sources, and history is basically based on written material. Prehistoric sites differ from historical sites in several respects. Generally they are not in the form of prominent habitation remains, but principally of fossils of humans, plants, and animals. They are found on the hill slopes of plateaus and mountains, and on the banks of nearby rivers with terraces, and comprise sundry fauna and flora.

Lack of written material

More importantly, numerous stone tools from the Stone Age have been found at these sites. The remains of tools, plants, animals, and humans from the pre-ice age indicate the climatic conditions that prevailed at the time. Although writing was known in India by the middle of the third millennium BC in the Indus culture, it has not so far been deciphered. Thus, though the Harappans knew how to write, their culture is placed in the proto-historic phase. The same is the case with the Chalcolithic or copper–Stone Age cultures which had no writing.

Decipherable text

Decipherable writing was known in India only in the third century BC with the Ashokan inscriptions providing solid evidence for historical reconstruction from that time. However, despite the critical use of Vedic and post-Vedic literary sources for history in pre-Ashokan times, archaeology remains a very important source for historians.

Location of mounds across India

The ancient Indians left innumerable material remains. The stone temples in south India and the brick monasteries in eastern India still stand to remind us of the great building activities of the past. However, the major part of these remains lies buried in mounds scattered all over India. (A mound is an elevated portion of land covering the remains of old habitations.) It may be of different types: single-culture, major-culture, and multi-culture. Single-culture mounds represent only one culture throughout. Some mounds represent only the Painted Grey Ware (PGW) culture, others Satavahana culture, and yet others that of the Kushans. In major-culture mounds, one culture is dominant and the others are of secondary importance. Multi-culture mounds represent several important cultures in succession which occasionally overlap with one another. As is the case with the Ramayana and Mahabharata, an excavated mound can be used to understand successive layers of the material and other aspects of a culture.

Mound excavation

A mound can be excavated vertically or horizontally. Vertical excavation means lengthwise digging to uncover the period-wise sequence of cultures; it is generally confined to a part of the site. Horizontal excavation entails digging the mound as a whole or a major part of it. The method may enable the excavator to obtain a complete idea of the site culture in a particular period. As most sites have been dug vertically, they provide a good chronological sequence of material culture. Horizontal diggings, being very expensive, are very few in number, with the result that the excavations do not give us a full or even adequate picture of material life in many phases of ancient Indian history.

Preservation of ruins in mounds

Even in those mounds which have been excavated, the ancient remains have been preserved in varying proportions. In the dry arid climate of western UP, Rajasthan, and north-western India, antiquities are found in a better state of preservation, but in the moist and humid climate of the mid-Gangetic plains and in the deltaic regions even iron implements suffered corrosion and mud structures become difficult to detect. Only the burnt brick structures or stone structures of the Gangetic plains are well preserved.

The presence of villages in Balochistan

Excavations have brought to light the villages that people established around 6000 BC in Baluchistan. They also tell us about the material culture which was in the Gangetic plains in the second millennium BC. They show the layout of the settlements in which people lived, the types of pottery they used, the form of house in which they dwelt, the kind of cereals they ate, and the type of tools and implements they used.

Lifestyle in the Deccan

Some people in south India buried in graves, along with the dead, their tools, weapons, pottery, and other belongings, and these were encircled by large pieces of stone. These structures are called megaliths, although some megaliths do not fall in this category. By digging them we learn of the life people lived in the Deccan from the Iron Age onwards. The science that enables us to systematically dig the successive layers of old mounds, and to form an idea of the material life of the people is called archaeology.

Determining the age of ancient objects

• (1) Their dates are fixed by various methods. Of them, radiocarbon dating is the most important. Radiocarbon or Carbon 14 (C14) is a radioactive carbon (isotope) which is present in all living objects. It decays, like all radioactive substances, at a uniform rate.
• (2) When an object is living, the process of decay of C14 is neutralized by absorption of C14 through air and food. However, when an object ceases to be alive, its C14 content continues to decay at a uniform rate but ceases to absorb C14 from air and food.
• (3) By measuring the loss of C14 content in an ancient object, its age can be determined. This is because, as stated earlier, the decay of C14 takes place at a uniform rate. It is known that the half-life of C14 is 5568 years. The halflife of a radioactive material is defined as the period during which half the radioactive content in an object disappears.
• (4) Thus, the C14 content in an object that ceased to live 5568 years ago would be half of what it was when it was living, and in an object which ceased to live 11,136 years ago, its C14 content would be one-fourth of that it had been when it was living. But no antiquity older than 70,000 years can be dated by this method.

Climate and plant history

The history of climate and vegetation is known through an examination of plant residues, and especially through pollen analysis. On this basis it is suggested that agriculture was practised in Rajasthan and Kashmir around 7000– 6000 BC. The nature and components of metal artefacts are analysed scientifically, and consequently the mines from which the metals were obtained are located and the stages in the development of metal technology identified. An examination of animal bones shows whether the animals were domesticated, and also indicates the uses to which they were put.

Comprehensive study of prehistoric history

I may add that archaeology provides a kind of soil archive which contains various material remains. However, for a total study of prehistory extending roughly up to 3000 BC or so, it is necessary to get an idea of the history of the soil, rocks, etc. This is provided by geological studies. Similarly, the world of plants and animals keeps on changing though at a slow pace. Their history is provided by biological studies. Human history cannot be understood without an idea of the continuing interaction between soils, plants, and animals, on the one hand, and humans, on the other. Geological and biological advances enable us to understand not only prehistory but also history. Taken together with archaeological remains, geological and biological studies act as important sources for the study of over 98 per cent of the total time scale of history starting with the origin of the earth.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the material remains of Indian history are invaluable sources for understanding the country’s rich and ancient past. They provide concrete and reliable evidence about social life, economic activities, political organization, religious practices, and technological progress of different periods. Through monuments, inscriptions, coins, tools, and artifacts, historians are able to reconstruct historical developments even in the absence of written records.

(FAQ) about Material Remains of Indian History ?