Alamgirpur

1.1 Where is the site?

Alamgirpur is a small village in Meerut district, Uttar Pradesh. It lies about 27 km west of Meerut and about 45 km north-east of Delhi.

The site is in the upper Ganga-Yamuna doab. A doab is the land between two rivers. Here the two rivers are the Ganga and the Yamuna.

The Hindon is a tributary of the Yamuna. The mound stands on the left bank of the Hindon. Today the river channel is about 3 km west of it.

1.2 What does the mound look like?

The ancient mound is called Parasuram-ka-khera by local people. It measures about 60 m from east to west and 50 m from north to south. It rises about 6 m above the nearby fields.

Today sugarcane and wheat fields surround it.

1.3 Why is it called the easternmost Harappan site?

The Harappan civilisation is also called the Indus Valley civilisation. It was an early city-based society that spread across what is now India and Pakistan.

Alamgirpur is described as the easternmost known Harappan site. It lies far east of the Indus heartland, across the Yamuna river.

In 1958-59 it was seen as the possible site of a Harappa culture station inside the Ganga-Yamuna doab. Today the Harappan presence across the Yamuna is considered unquestionable.

2.1 How did the site come to light?

In May 1958, a camp of the Bharat Sewak Samaj stayed at Alamgirpur. Its members dug a long trench into the mound. They found pottery, beads and other objects.

Y.D. Sharma of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) studied the finds. He saw Painted Grey Ware, terracotta cakes and faience bangles. These pointed to a probable Harappan link.

Faience is a glassy material that is shaped and then fired. Harappan people made bangles and small bowls from it.

This opened up the chance of a Harappan station inside the Ganga-Yamuna doab. So Sharma dug the site again.

2.2 What layers did he find?

The dig showed four cultural periods. A period is one layer of living, with its own pottery and tools. The four periods were Harappan, Painted Grey Ware, early historical and very late medieval.

The Harappan layer was the earliest. It was about 6 ft (roughly 1.8 m) thick. Sharma saw a break between all four periods.

2.3 What did the Harappan layer hold?

The pots were painted in black on a red surface. The designs included bands, triangles, squares, circles, plants and the peacock.

One clay trough carried the print of cloth. The yarn was fairly fine, and the cloth was a plain weave. In a plain weave each thread passes over one thread and under the next.

A pit held a crushed pile of thick platters and troughs. The platters were probably used to make bread. Diggers also found terracotta carts, dice, beads and bangles.

No building of this layer was found, probably because the dig was small. Kiln-burnt bricks did turn up.

2.4 What did Sharma conclude?

The Harappan layer had unmistakable Harappan traits. Yet Sharma thought it might still belong to the late phase of that culture. He added that no firmer date could be given.

He also saw the Painted Grey Ware culture follow the Harappan, with a gap between the two. In 1989 he revised the picture. He said the earliest layer held Harappan, Bara and some new but related wares.

3.1 Why dig again?

Sharma’s 1989 change made the story unclear. So Banaras Hindu University dug a small area again from April to June 2008.

The team wanted to check the layers using AMS dates. It also studied animal and plant remains and the soil.

AMS dating is a radiocarbon test that works on tiny samples. Here the samples were charred seeds. A burnt seed still holds carbon from the plant, so a lab can measure its age.

Dr Rachel Ballantyne of Cambridge first studied the seeds to pick the best ones.

3.2 What dates came out?

The team proposed a date range of 2600-2200 BCE (calibrated) for the earliest level.

Sharma had thought the Harappan layer might belong to a late phase. The 2008 dates place the earliest level earlier.

3.3 Was the site ever left empty?

The team saw no clear stratigraphic gap between Period I (Harappan) and Period II (Painted Grey Ware). Stratigraphy means the order of soil layers. A gap would show that people left and came back.

A soil study found no significant difference between the layers of the two cultures. So Sharma’s gap needs a rethink.

3.4 How did people live?

The first settlers built simple houses. The walls were mud, and the roofs were thatch held up by wooden posts.

They farmed. Charred seeds show barley, wheat and rice, plus vetch, peas and mung bean, and some oil seeds. The site stood in open grassland, so people burnt more than wood as fuel.

3.5 Whose pottery did they use?

The earliest layers held mostly Harappan pottery. A few Early Harappan sherds and a small number of OCP (Ochre Coloured Pottery) sherds turned up in the lowest layer.

Many sites in western Uttar Pradesh have Harappan, OCP and later cultures.

4.1 1958-59 versus 2008

4.2 Why does a small mound matter?

Alamgirpur is called the easternmost site because of what has been dug so far. A new dig could change that.

The site shows how one careful re-excavation can move a date by centuries and change a story.