Mehrgarh, Baluchistan
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. Readers will be able to edit existing articles and post new articles directly |
Mehrgarh
New Stone Age: Mehrgarh
By Mubarak Ali
In 1977, a settlement of the New Stone Age was excavated at Mehrgarh in the district of Kachchi in Balochistan. On the basis of the findings at the site, archaeologists estimated the first period of the settlement to have been from 7000 BC to 5000 BC, and the second period was from 5000 BC to 4000 BC. It was an agriculture-based community which dwelt on the bank of Bolan River. The land was irrigated by the river as well as by monsoon rain water.
Experts found seeds of wheat which showed that the people cultivated it, cut the harvest by sickle, and thrashed it by separating the husk. In the next process it was ground into flour for baking bread. Experts also found different kinds of pottery and baskets from the site.
Pottery was made by potters and then baked in fire. The large bulk of pottery recovered from the site showed that people were using it extensively for different purposes. Baskets made of reed were also found in a large number. It is evident that cloth was either prepared by wool or animals’ skin.
The houses were built with sun-baked bricks. A house was divided into four parts. The shape of it was a square. There was also storage area where they preserved grain in pots and baskets. It indicates that the settlers had started surplus production. There is evidence that most probably they also cultivated cotton because burnt cotton seed was also found at the site.
Domesticated animals at the time included sheep, goats and bulls. Buffalo was not yet domesticated but it was hunted down for meat. From domesticated animals the people got milk and meat, and used the bull as beast of burden. Sheep also provided them with wool which was used for making cloth.
Graves
The people of Mehrgarh used to bury their dead along with their belongings. In one of the graves, experts found stone tools of an artisan. In another grave they found a skeleton of a goat along with that of its owner. They buried the goat in assumption that it might help its master in the next world.
Besides tools, archaeologists also found ornaments and jewellery which indicated the status of the dead person. Graves were covered by red which shows their belief of life after death. It was a custom that as a mark they put a stone slab on the graves. Some graves were also covered by a roof. They were room-like graves.
Experts have made attempts to build a sketch of the social and cultural life of the settlement based on their information of the objects they found in the graves. For example, efforts are made to discover the average age, food, social status and what types of tools and pottery the people used in their daily lives. The antiquities discovered also show the people’s aesthetic taste.
Importance of Mehrgarh
It is assumed that in 3800 BC civilisation at Mehrgarh was on a decline. Then it disappeared and was buried under the earth for centuries without any knowledge. Thanks to archaeological techniques the site was discovered in 1977. Its importance is that it developed before the Harappan civilisation and the location of it was in Balochistan.
It is evident that as a precursor, Mehrgarh contributed to the Indus Valley Civilisation. Its excavation has extended the known history of Pakistan which now begins from 7000 BC.
Origins of the Dentist(With a Stone-Age Drill)
By KYLE JARRARD
Mehrgarh complex, near the Bolan River, Baluchistan,
International Herald Tribune
Man's first known trip to the dentist occurred as early as 9,000 years ago, when at least nine people living in a Neolithic village in present-day Pakistan had holes drilled into their molars and survived the procedure, anthropologists reported yesterday.
The findings, which appear in the journal Nature, push back the dawn of dentistry by 4,000 years. The drilled molars, 11 in all, come from a sample of 300 individuals buried in graves at the Mehrgarh site in western Pakistan, believed to be the oldest Stone Age complex in the Indus River valley. "This is certainly the first case of drilling a person's teeth," said David W. Frayer, a professor at the University of Kansas who is the lead author. "But even more significant, this practice lasted some 1,500 years and was a tradition at this site. It wasn't just a sporadic event."
The earliest previously known evidence of dental work was a drilled molar found in a Neolithic graveyard in Denmark dating from about 3000 B.C.; the Pakistan graves are from about 7000 B.C.
All nine of the Mehrgarh patients were adults, ranging in age from about 20 to over 40 — four men, two women and three whose sex could not be determined. Most of the dental work was done on the chewing surfaces of their molars, in both the upper and lower jaws, probably using a flint point attached to a bow that made a Stone Age version of a high-speed drill, the researchers said. Concentric ridges carved by the drilling device were found inside the holes. The drilling may have been done to relieve the suffering of tooth rot, but only 4 of the 11 teeth showed signs of decay. The scientists said it was clear that the holes were not made for aesthetic reasons, given their position deep in the mouth and on the erosion-prone surface of the teeth. There was no evidence of fillings, but because some of the holes were bored deep into the teeth, the researchers think something was used to plug them. What that substance was is not known.
The shallowest holes were just half a millimeter, but the deepest were 3.5 millimeters (about an eighth of an inch), enough to pierce the enamel and enter the sensitive dentin.
Dental health was poor at Mehrgarh, though the problems were less often tooth decay than brutal wear and tear. Roberto Macchiarelli, a professor of paleoanthropology at the University of Poitiers, France, and the report's lead anthropological researcher, attributed the bad teeth to the Neolithic diet, which included newly domesticated wheat and barley.
"A lot of abrasive mineral material was introduced when grains were ground on a stone," he said. "And as these people moved to a grain diet, their teeth wore down, dentin was exposed and the risk of infection rose."
The Mehrgarh complex, occupied for 4,000 years, sits beside the Bolan River in Baluchistan, on a plain that was repeatedly buried in alluvial deposits that not only destroyed mud-brick buildings but crushed many skeletons in the graveyard. The excavation of 300 individuals was begun by a French team in the 1980's; international groups followed until 2001, when it became too dangerous to work in Baluchistan.
None of the individuals with drilled teeth appear to have come from a special tomb or sanctuary, indicating that the oral care they received was available to all.
