Archaeology of Eastern India : New Perspectives

Contents: Introduction/Gautam Sengupta and Sheena Panja. I. The question of chronology and style: 1. Style and chronology: problems in evolving a temporal framework for the early historical terracottas from Bengal/Sima Roychowdhury. 2. The question of chronology and style in connection with early historic pottery of West Bengal/Durga Basu. 3. Two notes on chronology and style: evidence from Mahasthan/Sandrine Gill. II. The notion of a "site": 1. The notion of site: rethinking the microlithic of Western plateau land/Bishnupriya Basak. 2. The prehistoric sites of Western Garo Hills, Meghalaya/Sukanya Sharma. 3. Systematic survey at the early historic urban site of Sisupalgarh, Orissa/Monica L. Smith. 4. Understanding archaeological settlements in the dynamic landscapes of Ajay river valley/Suchira Roy Chowdhury. 5. Chandraketugarh – a site in lower Bengal/Sharmi Chakraborty. 6. Early historic archaeology of Chilika lake, Orissa: an ecological perspective/Jitu Misra. 7. The early historic and early medieval archaeology of Bogra district, Bangladesh/Shah Sufi Mustafizur Rahman. 8. Understanding early medieval sites of North Bengal/Sheena Panja. 9. Archaeology of Gaur: source material on the medieval cities of Gaur and Pandua (West Bengal, India) in the British public collections/Pratip Kumar Mitra. 10. Archaeology of the medieval city of Gaur/Sutapa Sinha. III. The role of ethnographic work and its relevance to the archaeology of Eastern India: 1. Living megalithic traditions among the Poumais of Manipur/Potshangbam Binodini Devi. 2. Terracotta objects in archaeology: an ethnoarchaeological study/Kaushik Gangopadhyay. IV. Some current work in archaeological science: 1. Locale: material and monuments: Begunia group of temples, Barakar, West Bengal/Gautam Sengupta and Sambhu Chakraborty. 2. Pottery technology and provenance studies from the site of Chandraketugarh in lower Bengal/Anjan Kumar Das, Sheena Panja, Tapas Kumar Mukhopadhyay and Sachchidananda Chakrabarti. 3. Metal finds from Chandraketugarh, West Bengal: archaeotechnical studies/Pranab K. Chattopadhyay. V. Current review of archaeological explorations and excavations: 1. Ecology and cultural behaviour of the early man in Bengal – a case study at Gandheswari and Tarafeni river valleys/Asok Datta. 2. Archaeology of Kalahandi district, Orissa/Pradeep Mohanty and Baba Misra. 3. Khameswaripali: a protohistoric site in the middle Mahanadi valley, Orissa: results of first season’s (1996-97) excavation/P.K. Behera. 4. Recent excavations at chalcolithic sites in Orissa/Sadashiv Pradhan. 5. Mahasthangarh (Bangladesh) and the Ganges valley in the Mauryan period/Jean-Francois Salles, Marie Francoise Boussac and Jean-Yvres Breuil. 6. A newly discovered Buddhist monastery at Jagajjivanpur, West Bengal/Amal Roy. 7. Samatata, Mainamati: some observations/Abu Imam.

"The Archaeology of Eastern India: New Perspectives attempts to deal with some of the questions and problems in the archaeology of the region and highlights empirical work currently in progress in diverse areas of Eastern India. Archaeology in Eastern India is fraught with numerous problems. There have been very few systematic field surveys or excavations alongwith a complete lack of multidisciplinary work in this area. We are yet to gain any comprehensive insight into the culture-history of the region. Moreover scholars have rarely critically questioned many concepts, ideas and assumptions which are basic to the understanding of the discipline itself. This book deals with a few of such theoretical problems, the notion of a "site", the debate on style and chronology as well as the importance of tools like ethnoarchaeology and the use of natural sciences in archaeological understanding alongwith a review of current research. This book is a beginning to a more critical and holistic archaeology." (jacket)