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Stories in Kutch shells: Hunter-gatherers who lived in Gujarat 5,000 years before the Harappans and their cities
Researchers at Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar (IITGN) who worked with experts from IIT Kanpur (IITK), Inter University Accelerator Centre (IUAC) Delhi, and Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) Ahmedabad, have reported the presence of humans in the Great Rann of Kutch at least 5,000 years before the Harappans.
The conclusion is based on the dating and analysis of remains of shells that were first discovered in the late 19th century. The Anglo-Irish geologist Arthur Beavor Wynne wrote in the Geological Survey of India (GSI) memoirs in 1872 about 'a patch of large broken univalve shells' found 'all over the northern side of Kutch'.
The IITGN study suggests links between the Kutch midden site – archaeological sites where large quantities of marine shells, along with bones, tools, and pottery are typically found – and those in Oman and Pakistan along the coast of the northern Arabian Sea where these pre-Harappan communities likely lived.
Preliminary results were published in 2023 in Man and Environment, the biannual journal of the Indian Society for Prehistoric and Quaternary Studies ('Evidence for the presence of prehistoric hunter-gatherer communities on Khadir island, Great Rann of Kutch, Gujarat').
A new set of archaeological remains was discovered about a kilometre from the Harappan site of Dholavira near Bambhanka, the southernmost village on Khadir Beyt (island), on the route connecting the island to the Kutch mainland.
Khadir was one of the six islands in this region, where sea levels were higher until about 5,000-6,000 years ago, V N Prabhakar, associate professor at the Department of Earth Sciences and Humanities and Social Sciences at IITGN, said.
During a visit to the site in 2016, study co-author Shikha Rai and Vikrant Jain, professor at IITGN's Department of Earth Sciences, discovered the 'remains of house complexes' on a hillock 2.5 km to the northwest of Bambhanka.
'The surface had broken potsherds, shell remains, and flakes of carnelian and agate, while on the surface were remnants of walls built with random rubble masonry,' Dr Rai told The Indian Express. On the western edge of this hillock, a trench dug to lay a pipeline exposed a 30-40-cm-thick deposit of shell remains.
'Most of the shell remains display breakage on the central part, presumably to extract meat from them. Similar findings from the Las Bela region of Pakistan are placed between the seventh and fifth millennium BCE, which suggests the possibility of hunter-gatherer communities depending on shell remains as a food source and participating in long distance trade within inland sites,' Dr Rai said.
More similar sites were subsequently discovered in and around Khadir.
Clues in the mangroves
The study indicates the presence of coastal hunter-gatherer communities in the Great Rann of Kutch region who adapted to the mangrove environment to which the shell species identified so far – such as Terebralia palustris, or the giant mangrove whelk – belong.
'Most sites are on river banks, some 2-2.5 km from the coast, while some are deeper inside, which suggests the inhabitants carried the sea shells inland. We could not reach the northern coast, which is a forest area, but there may be more deposits there,' Prof Prabhakar said.
Currently, the only remnants of mangroves are found in the Little Rann of Kutch to the southeast of Dholavira, near Lakhpat on the coast to the west, and at an inland location known as Shravan Kavadiya to the northeast of Bhuj, which may have been the ancient shoreline.
'These humans were collecting food wherever it was available in their mangrove environment. They broke the shells and extracted the meat, which they may have even cooked – because some shells are black or grey in colour, suggesting they were heated. The shells may have been discarded at the same place for perhaps 300-400 years,' Prof Prabhakar said.
These communities of humans were hunter-gatherers, not farmers, he said.
'Apart from shells, they could have consumed plants, fruits, tubers, or nuts. But there isn't enough evidence yet… Maybe if we excavate one site, we can study the soil samples and try to understand the flora of that time.'
Stone tools and trade
The presence of flakes at several sites like Laungwali, Kunduwari, Ganeshpar, and Janan on Khadir island suggest the use of tools by these people.
'After the discovery at Bambhanka, local people led us to the site of Lungwali, about 1 km from Dholavira, where similar remains along with stone tools were discovered. A good number of chert, jasper, and chalcedony cores were found,' Prof Prabhakar said.
According to Prof Prabhakar, these hunter-gatherer communities would have used tools made of basalt, limestone, and quartzite to hunt. Some smaller stones that have been found could have served as tips of arrows.
'They may have occupied a site maybe for one season, and moved on to another location, and then to another. Had there been permanent occupation, we could have found other remains as well,' he said.
Barring agate, which was available near Amarapar village in Kutch, the other stones are not available locally, which suggests the possibility of trade, according to investigators.
The finding from Kutch tallies with evidence from the Karachi coast, Prof Prabhakar said. 'We think that the Oman evidence is also coinciding. There was a wider area, and people definitely could have communicated with each other. Maybe in the future, if we have more evidence we can establish this,' he said.
Before the Harappan people
Fifteen samples from Khadir island have been carbon dated so far. The first three samples – all from Bambhanka – were dated at PRL Ahmedabad, and the remaining 12 at IUAC Delhi.
Ravi Bhushan, a former professor at PRL who is now a consultant at the National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research (NCPOR), Goa, said: 'Radiocarbon dating, which is one of the most powerful tools scientists use to determine the age of ancient artifacts, fossils, and archaeological sites, was used. However, there is a time lag of 400-500 years as these shells feed on dead carbonates… this means they could be a little older.'
Carbon dating pegs the antiquity of the Dholavira site at 3,300 BC to 1,400 BCE. The Harappan period is generally considered to extend from 2,600 to 1,900 BCE.
'Both before and after the Harappans, there were people living in smaller settlements in this area. But these remains are 5,500-5000 years before the time of the Harappans,' Dr Rai said.
Ten more samples from four sites on Khadir, Bela, and the Kutch mainland will be dated at IUAC Delhi soon. Thereafter, more studies will be carried out with the collaboration of IIT Kanpur.
