Holocene environmental changes and cultural patterns in coastal western India: A geoarchaeological perspective

Abstract

Geomorphological studies carried out around coastal sites at Hazira, Kanmer, Padri and Sanjan in Gujarat, and Chaul, and Kelshi in Maharashtra indicate human activity throughout the Holocene. The offshore site at Hazira, of early Holocene age, is the only submerged prehistoric site at a depth of 20–40 m below the present sea level in the entire 7000 km long coastline of India. Protohistoric Harappan sites at Kanmer and Padri are of mid-Holocene age. The sites of Sanjan, Chaul and Kelshi represent an Early Historic cultural phase belonging to the Late Holocene age. The site of Hazira was located on the banks of a buried channel adjusted to the low sea level phase of the Early Holocene. Cultural development of the Harappan site at Kanmer in the present semi-arid rocky landscape of Kachchh was closely related to the existence of 2–5 m deep water in the presently dried up part of Rann of Kachchh throughout the mid-Holocene. On the other hand the economy of the Harappan site of Padri depended on salt manufacturing in a stable estuarine environment close to the present sea level of the Gulf of Cambay. Sanjan, Chaul and Kelshi appear to have depended on a trading economy. These sites are situated in estuarine environments involving lateral transgressive–regressive phases more or less within the present intertidal zone of Arabian Sea in a humid environment.