EARLY CIVILISATIONS OF THE NORTHWESTanimals to be tamed, followed by water buffaloes whose earliest remains,
outside China, were discovered here.
Precious items found in the graves of Mehrgarh provide evidence for the
existence of a network of long-distance trade even during this early period.
There were beads made of turquoise from Persia or Central Asia, lapis
lazuli from Afghanistan and shells which must have come from the coast
400 miles away.
Next to this oldest mound at Mehrgarh there is another site which
contains chalcolithic settlements showing the transition from the Stone Age
to the Bronze Age. Ceramics as well as a copper ring and a copper bead
were found here. The rise of handicraft is clearly in evidence at this stage.
Hundreds of bone awls were found, as well as stones which seem to have
been used for sharpening these awls. The uppermost layer of this site
contains shards of painted ceramics very similar to those found in a
settlement of the fourth millennium (Kili Ghul Mohammad III) near
Quetta. When this stage was reached at Mehrgarh the settlement moved a
few hundred yards from the older ones. The continuity is documented by
finds of the same type of ceramics which characterised the final stage of the
second settlement.
In this third phase in the fifth and early fourth millennia skills were
obviously much improved and the potter’s wheel was introduced to
manufacture large amounts of fine ceramics. In this period Mehrgarh
seems to have given rise to a technical innovation by introducing a drill
moved by means of a bow. The drill was made of green jasper and was
used to drill holes into beads made of lapis lazuli, turquoise and cornelian.
Similar drills were found at Shahr-i-Sokhta in eastern Iran and at Chanhu-
Daro in the Indus valley, but these drills belong to a period which is about
one millennium later. Another find at Mehrgarh was that of parts of a
crucible for the melting of copper.
At about 3500 BC, the settlement was shifted once more. In this fourth
phase ceramics attained major importance. The potters produced large
storage jars decorated with geometric patterns as well as smaller
receptacles for daily use. Some of the shards are only as thick as an
eggshell. Small female figurines made of terracotta were found here and
terracotta seals, the earliest precursors of the seals found in the Indus
valley, were also found. Mehrgarh must have been inhabited by that time
by a well-settled and fairly wealthy population.
The fifth phase of settlement at Mehrgarh started around 3200 BC. The
features characteristic of this phase had also been noted in sites in eastern
Iran and Central Asia. Because not much was known about Baluchistan’s
protohistory prior to the fourth millennium BC, these features were
thought to have derived from those western regions. But the excavations at
Mehrgarh show that the early settlers of Baluchistan were not just passive
imitators but had actively contributed to the cultural evolution. Long-