Cultures in South Asia, 4000 B.C.E.

South Asian bands: 60,000 B.C.E. to 4000 B.C.E.

The first group: The Sindhu-Saraswati Culture

There is some evidence that around 70,000 to 60,000 B.C.E, a large number of humans migrated out of Africa.  Moving along the coast of the Arabian Sea they established settlements in Somalia, Yemen, the Makran coast, the Indus delta, all along the western coast of India, then up the eastern coast to the delta of the Ganges and onwards to point east, possibly all the way to Australia.  The settlements in Yemen and the Makran coast faced formidable challenges and grew very slowly, but all along the South Asian coastline, the living was easy.  The settlers in Sind, on the Indus delta, and the settlers in Bengal, on the Ganges delta, were hit with floods caused by the summer monsoons and melting snow from the Himalayas, and in both areas, a nomadic way of life developed. In the summer the bands moved to the foothills of the nearby mountains (Baluchistan in the west and Chhota Nagpur in the east). After the rainy season and as the weather cooled, the river receded exposing land made fertile with fresh silt.  Other animals also came migrated down to the fresh water and the abundance of food and so did the human bands from the hills.  As the number of bands in the west grew, they moved along the foothills of the Kirthar range, maintaining the practice of wintering on the Indus and summering in the hills.  They continued expanding north and then followed the Helmand tributary up through the Khyber Pass into the plateau of Afghanistan.  Here in Afghanistan, between 15,000 B.C.E. and 8,000 B.C.E., they would encounter migrants from the north and west, and the Ancient North Indian haplotype came into existence. Along the way, they encountered the zebu, the humped Indian cow, and domesticated it. [1]

Having encountered a group migrating towards them, the Indus valley population imported the Ancient North Indian haplotype back to the Indus valley.  The migration along the foothills also continued to the  north and east until they hit the foothills of Swat and Kashmir.  They continued to the east in the shadow of the Himalayas, crossing the Indus and its tributaries and at the eastern end they encountered the Sutudri.  They called it the Sutudri because every summer when the waters rose, the river split into a hundred streams.  Crossing the Sutudri was impractical, so they moved south along its westernmost branches and discovered the northern end of the Saraswati, a wide but manageable river.  They continued south along both banks of the Saraswati and found themselves back where they had started, twenty thousand years earlier.  Thus a unified culture came into existence that encircled the Punjab, the “land of five waters”, and Sind, where the Indus (the Sindhu) and the Saraswati deltas emptied into the Arabian Sea.

Until they encountered the Saraswati, they had never seen a river that did not flood every year. The Saraswati was fed by snow melt from the Sutudri and the Yamuna (another river further to the east) and monsoon rains that fell on the western side of the Aravalli range, that extended a ridge from the Vindhya range in the south.  The Indus and its tributaries constantly changed course and the culture that had developed was a nomadic one that went to the hills during the monsoon and the fall snow melt, and came down to the river plains only for the winter and spring. But with the discovery of the Saraswati, they were on a river-bank that would support a permanent settlement. During the extended nomadic period, they had domesticated cattle and they knew much about edible fruits and seeds.  The first permanent settlements emerged around 8000 B.C.E. along the banks of the upper Saraswati.

In the meantime, bands on the eastern bank of the Indus delta, had moved east and reached the Saraswati.  Faced with a wide stable river they created settlements.  They, too, built up herds of cattle and began to settle down and expand to the north.  This was a slower process as each new village would form only when the old one was deemed to be crowded and in 8000 B.C.E. they had only reached the upper sections of the Saraswati when they encountered their own ANI-hybridized cousins.

Over the next 5000 years, a civilization came into being.  It has been called the Indus Valley Civilization.  More recently, there has been a drive by some Indian groups to rename it the Sindhu-Saraswati Culture. The basis for this claim is that the largest number of settlements of this people can be found along the banks of the disappeared Saraswati.

The second group: the Rakshasa

The settlers along the eastern and western coasts of peninsular India found a very different environment. Numerous streams and rivers exited the hills of the Deccan plateau and there were a wide variety of animals and edible plants. There was no need to lead a nomadic life, moving from oasis to oasis in search of food and water.  Life was integrated with the surrounding forest and wilderness.  Bands remained small for it was easy to form a new band when the old band grew too big – the new band typically moved upstream until they reached the hills or arrived at non-forested semi-desert and scrubland.  When the riverbank was completely populated, the next band would move north or to the south in search of another river and forest to exploit.

A band established a home base in the forest, usually in an open grove close to the river, where a cluster of homes could be built.  Built of logs, daubed with mud, and thatched, they were simple homes that provided shelter from rain during the monsoon and some privacy but little else.  Cane baskets with lids provided storage for fruits, tubers, nuts, 24and other plant foods that the group collected.  Coir was used to make rope and nets of coir-rope or cane were used to trap small animals.  Bows and arrows tipped with flint arrowheads (in the beginning) and copper or bronze (later) were used to kill larger prey. They did not need to lead a nomadic life, but they did have to protect their turf.  They called themselves Rakshasa, meaning “protector”.

This group, originating from the coasts, slowly migrated north up the coasts.  In the east, as they approached the delta of the Ganga-Brahmaputra rivers, they encountered an unfamiliar group of people – this group spent the monsoon and fall flood season in the north and eastern end of the Chhota Nagpur plateau and went down to the delta in the winter and spring to harvest fish, fruits, and other plants.  The Rakshasas generally avoided conflict, so they turned west through the valley of the Mahanadi (“The Great River”) going deeper into the Chhota Nagpur plateau. As the Rakshasas went deeper into the plateau, they discovered the Sone river that flowed north out of the plateau.  Following the Sone, they exited the plateau in the northwest and entered the great North Indian plain through which the Ganga flowed.  Their initial settlements were in a forested area south of the Ganges at the confluence with the Sone.

By 4000 B.C.E., the Rakshasas had settled in the forest on both banks of the Ganga.  Having reached the Ganga, they had expanded to the east.  The river turned north and then went further east to merge with the Brahmaputra coming from further east – this was a flood-prone plain and the forest disappeared.  The river here was settled by a people who called themselves Meena-Nagas, who relied on fish as their primary food.  As usual, the Rakshasas stopped well short of  conflict.  Their expansion continued to the west of the Son-Ganga merge, but they encountered another people who also called themselves Naga, but not Meena.  These Nagas made common cause with the Meena-Nagas of the Ganges delta.  As a result, the Rakshasas could not expand along the river bank.  They pushed north towards the Himalayas, but had to stop when they reached the foot-hills of the Himalayas and were overwhelmed by the scale of the mountains.

Another branch of Rakshasas went west from the Chhota Nagpur following tributaries of the Mahanadi into the interior forests of the Deccan plateau.  But this land was only watered by the monsoons and years of drought alternated with flash floods. The hillsides were heavily forested with trees that could survive the lack of rain.  For the Rakshasas, expansion was limited by the ability to cultivate the hillside with a minimum of labor.

The Rakshasas were the source of the Ancient South Indian haplogroup.

The third group: the Nagas

The third group, who called themselves the Nagas, had initially settled in the Ganga-Brahmaputra Delta. In the beginning, they followed the model common to the Sindhu-Saraswati culture and the Rakshasas – they spent the monsoon and fall in the north-eastern stretches of Chhota Nagpur.  Naga bands came down to the river plains only in the winter and spring.  The waters would have receded and left a layer of sediment on the banks.  The heavier clay sediments had been laid down in the upper reaches of the Ganga and the sediment here was sandier and easier to cultivate, so it was possible to plant a winter crop of fruits and vegetables.  River fishes as well as forest wildlife supplemented this largely vegetarian diet.  The Nagas expanded north and when they reached the confluence of the Ganga and the Brahmaputra they continued to the Himalayan foothills.  Here they encountered a group that had entered the subcontinent from Tibet via Nepal.  That group was moving in front of the advancing glaciers of 20,000 B.C.E.

The initial encounters with the northern group created confusion. The newcomers did not understand that when the Nagas left during the monsoon, they were not abandoning their lands.  In the beginning, the Nagas adjusted – land was plentiful, but as the newcomers occupied more and more of the best land, customs changed.  The Naga bands began to protect “their” land by abandoning the annual migration to the foothills.  The northerners also learned new practices – how to store food so that it would not spoil in the hot, wet monsoon season.  Houses had to be built on pilings by the river banks that would survive floods – the northerners were used to building permanent homes on the Terai hillsides and the rugged Nepali plateau, but they had to learn to build homes that were less permanent as nothing was storm resistant. Floods and rainstorms destroyed houses every few years, so houses had to be rebuilt or repaired often – a pattern emerged of moving in response to deterioration of a settlement and rebuilding in a different location.

Over the next ten thousand years the two groups merged.  The resulting culture called itself Naga.  The older Nagas, still dominant in the mangrove forests of the delta called themselves Meena-Naga, the Fish(-ing) Nagas. Over the next 10,000 years the groups merged.  The Tibetans contributed the Ancient East Indian haplotype to the population.  As Naga settlements increased and moved away for the flood-plain and upstream, they developed agricultural practices that were consistent with frequent moves.  Sometime around 8000 B.C.E., wild rice was discovered and became a staple grain.  We do not know where rice was first discovered and cultivated, but it is possible that it was a Naga discovery.  Rice grew best in flooded fields and that brought about another innovation in Naga practice – when a Naga village moved it prepared new farmland for growing rice by a controlled burn to create an open grove in the forest for planting.

Thus when the Rakshasas first encountered them, the Nagas had already settled along the Ganges all the way up to the confluence of the Chambal and the Ganga (the Yamuna at that time flowed west into the Saraswati and the Chambal with the Ganga and not the Yamuna as it does now).  The Rakshasa expansion exerted pressure to the east as well as to the west.  Since the Naga groups to the east could not move, they resisted, but to the west the Nagas simply abandoned their farms and went further west in response to Rakshasa expansion.  As a result, by 4000 B.C.E., Nagas had settled all the way up the Ganges to the foothills of the Himalayas as well as much of the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta and points further east – the Naga range was divided in two by a Rakshasa-dominated area on both sides of the Ganga east of the confluence with the Sone.

Conclusion: South Asia in 4000 B.C.E.

The period from 70,000 B.C.E. to 4000 B.C.E. covers a lot of history. It includes a global ice age that reached its maximum around 20,000 B.C.E.  South Asia stayed largely free of glaciers, ice, and extreme cold, especially near the coasts.  The population of South Asia grew at a time that other areas of the world were shrinking.  Issues of farming and domestication could be addressed in South Asia between 15,000 B.C.E. and 8000 B.C.E. at a time when the Middle East, Europe, the Russian steppes were snow-bound and struggling for survival.  By 8000 B.C.E. the South Asian populations had established settlements, started farming or cultivation, while the rest of the world was just beginning the process.

By 4000 B.C.E., a fully urban Saraswati-Sindhu culture existed in the west, while the vast Gangetic plain supported partly nomadic populations that employed simple cultivation techniques.

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1 The domestication of the zebu led the SSC down a path significantly different from the Shakas of the steppes who domesticated the horse.  Both animals can be used as draft animals, but the horse is larger, eats more, prefers foods that must be grown in competition with food for humans, is less compliant when milked, and must be individually tamed. Horsemeat is also leaner, i.e., delivering less energy, making it more expensive.  However, the horse can be a weapon of war, and that would make a big difference in a later era.