Frineds,

This is just a small note:

This is just a small article to record progress on the project – a micro-wear analysis of some artifacts of the Bihar Neolithic — being conducted under the auspices of the Indian Council of Historical Research and in affiliation with the K.P. Jayaswal Research Institute (Dept. of Secondary and Higher Edn) Patna.

Work started on 25.7.2002 when the K. P. Jayaswal Institute granted the affiliation. After preliminary reading, in Delhi, I was invited to explain my approach of this study through a seminar to be delivered at the said Jaysawal institute on 1.5.03.

This seminar, which was reported widely in local newspapers, suggested that the uniqueness of this project was that it was the first time such an approach was being applied to Chirand material, the most preeminent neolithic site of Bihar and for decades after the 1970s the most preeminent neolithic site of India, apart from Burzahom in Kashmir. This is because the site, for the first time, yielded bone and antler tools in conjunction with pottery and palaeobotanical remains of cultivated species of rice, barley, wheat, grams and peas. stone tools were also found plentifully along with charactiristic pottery. The Chirand report has just been published by Dr. B.S. Verma its excavator from 1960 -1970.

The project was thus off to a flying start and received the blessings of all archaeologists connected with prehistory in Bihar, as well as those associated specifically with the site of this study, Chirand.

In the seminar it was explained that the typological categories, such as axe, adze, blade, points, borers and chisels, that are often accepted as indubitable categories for tools from the prehistoric period, are in question today. This is because it is only a microwear approach which by studying traces of use on various tools helps us understand best the actual function of a tool and therefore its history.

Work was started with the kind permission of the Patna museum which holds the famous material from excavations of Chirand. These include stone, bone and antler tools although their stratigraphy has only just become available.

At the time of writing this note, we have examined a sample from all three categories of tools (stone, bone, antler) and it is reported with delight that this sample reveals numerous and distinct signs of wear.

Availability of the right equipment to carry out this study was time-taking but by using a 10x (Pico) and a 9001 100x micro-scope we have nevertheless established that the tools of Chirand are indeed bearing microwear traces. In the next phase this project proposes to photorecord the types of the traces and to match these with traces occurring on artifacts produced experimentally by us.

Ajay, 2008.

Friends,

Lest this page sound frivolous I would suggest that you access the script of a film called Trobriand Cricket, through the internet. I have myself not seen it on the net as yet. It is a film that records how the game of cricket was adopted and adapted by the local tribes of these islands, when they were banned from warring on each other by the occupying allied forces during the second world war. Thus their version of cricket mimicks a warfare of sorts in which both teams come to the ground richly painted in war colours and heckle, chase and chatize each other during this fascinating version of cricket.
Then as in India, there is street-cricket. in college, we had block-cricket, therewas even, at school, a french-cricket.
Ajay.

Friends,

The first book I propose to review is a work of fiction. It is called English, August: An Indian story. Upamanyu Chatterji, 1989, Rupa & Co. but i have to get hold of the book first. However, the basic story is that of Augustya a newly appointed Civil Service Officer who finds his first posting as Collector of Madna, a small mofussil town, presumably in Bengal. The story revolves around his coming to terms with the idiosyncracies of the Indian society and its local elites, not to mention the waywardness of the government.

Ajay

Dear Friends,

Have you noticed? lately the Discovery Channel has been showing a series of very interesting, picturesque, accurate and informative series of films called The Story of India. These are produced by The BBC, that has a longheld reputation of informative depth and accuracy on matters Indian...I saw their The End of Empire Series, as a Ph.D. student in England, and now as a teacher, would highly reccommend to my students. Again try the net for clues.

Ajay.

Friends,

In our quest to see how historical period monuments are still in some use by present-day public, we must mention that in a previous visit to Sarnath, 2007, we found that a lot of Buddhist devotees still pay homage (nay pray) at the ancient site. Sarnath was discovered by Alexander Cunnigham in 1868 when it was completely buried under a mound. Then the Archaeological Survey of India, under his direction, excavated the mound. Cunnigham was greatly taken-up with the Si Yu Ki written by Hieun-Tsang that is a memoir of the Chinese monk's travels to places of Buddhist interest in India. Cunnigham followed, through the Si Yu Ki, the entirety of Hieun-Tsang's route of travel and in the process brought to light most of the Buddhist Stupas, Caves etc. that we know of today.

Ajay, 2008.

ETHNOARCHAEOLOGY IN INDIA: SOME REFLECTIONS ON METHOD AND THEORY

BY

AJAY PRATAP

SCOPE OF THE WORK

"Postprocessual archaeology is a form of archaeological theory which is related to the broader development of postmodernism during the 1980s. Processual archaeologists had, if not a single theoretical position to unify them, then at least a common aspiration that drove them: the construction of a scientific and comparative archaeology. Conversely, postprocessual archaeologies juxtaposed Neo-Marxism, feminist archaeology, cognitive archaeology and contextual archaeology. Such viewpoints are very different from each other. This diversity was unified, however, by a critique of processualism, which was painted as a positivist outlook on culture.

Like postmodernism, postprocessualism has a relativistic view of and is largely based on a critique of the scientific method of processual archaeology.

Postprocessual archaeologists were jaded with the deterministic and functionalist views of processual archaeology and feel that their new movement is the next step after processualism. In this way it can be seen that the name postprocessualism, first coined by Dr. Ian Hodder, its first and major proponent, has a dual meaning. The first is an engagement with postmodernism, its parent theory, the second is its emergence from processual archaeology (Hodder, 1986).

The general critique involved in postprocessualism is that archaeology is not an experimental discipline, which makes it highly vulnerable to attacks that it is not objective enough. The postprocessual archaeologists claim that, for the most part, since theories on cultural change cannot be independently verified experimentally, what is considered “true” is simply what seems the most reasonable to archaeologists as a whole. Since archaeologists are not perfectly objective, the conclusions they reach will always be influenced by personal biases (Trigger, 1989:379). A concrete example of this is the patriarchial underpinnings of most of archaeology until the latter half of the 20th century, wherein questions on the role of women in the cultures and systems under study were not asked. Postprocessual archaeologists state that personal biases inevitably affect the very questions archaeologists ask and direct them to the conclusions they are predisposed to believe.

While this idea may sound vague, it has definite consequences in the actual practice of archaeological fieldwork. In order to collect data and analyse it, the archaeologist must first decide which questions he wants to ask. Given that typical digs will cause hundreds of thousands (or perhaps millions) of artifacts to be recovered and analyzed, and that the cost of reanalyzing artifacts is prohibitive, the question of categorization and analysis techniques must effectively be posed prior to an excavation or survey starting. These techniques will often reveal biases.

Some postprocessualists believe that this means we can never accurately reconstruct the past, so why try? They advocate the use of archaeological data to produce historical fantasies. "Why not?", they say. "It's just as likely as any other explanation archaeologists can offer." Some also argue it is perfectly allowable to use archaeological data to support personal political and social agendas (Trigger, 1989:380). They perhaps overlook the problem that archaeology has a checkered past at best when used to support political agendas. (Trigger 1984:615).

Postprocessualism is increasingly popular in America, where processualism originated. To a large extent processualists believe in the scientific method - that archaeology is credible to the extent to which it employs the scientific method, and find the much less scientific nature of postprocessualism to be a step in the wrong direction. In Europe, on the other hand, postprocessualism has become dominant.

Despite differences there is common ground between processualists and postprocessualists. Both processual and postprocessual archaeology want to know about the people of the past. Both are concerned about how we know about people in the past and whether that knowledge represents the actual past or just a personal mental reconstruction of the past. While some postprocessualists argue that any understanding of the past is impossible most believe that, if nothing else, we should still try to do archaeology as best we can while struggling to keep concerns about our own bias constantly in mind. Both wish to eliminate this bias and come to an objective understanding of the reality of the past, however they differ very significantly in how to best achieve this end. Regardless, many archaeologists who tend to subscribe to postprocessual theoretical frameworks rely on many techniques--such as stratified sampling, statistics, and biochemical/material analysis--that originated from a processual mindset". Wikipaedia on the processual vs. postprocessual debate, 2008.

Since the 1950s, when H.D. Sankalia made the first rational deductions about archaeological data using the ethnographic database, ethnoarchaeology in India has developed apace with the rest of archaeology. In a country like ours, with its numerous tribes and castes, the ethnoarchaeological method has great relevance. Several scholars have delved into finding the interface between archaeology and anthropology. These include both early archaeologists of the colonial era like Valentine Ball, P.O. Bodding, J. Cockburn, A.C. Carllyel, Robert Bruce Foote to name just a few, Christoph von Fuhrer Haimendorf, F.R. Allchin, Bridget Allchin, H.D.Sankalia, G.S.Ghurye, D.R.Bhandarkar; using tribal culture as a base for talking about early societies, to latter day trained ethnoarchaeologists like K. Paddyya, V.N Misra, M.L.K. Murty and their students talking about the undeniability of the interface and using this to predict or interpret archaeological finds in a methodologically systematic manner.It is the purpose of this volume to put into place some of the landmark studies carried out ever since attempts were made to relate archaeology and anthropology in the Indian context. For this volume, particular interest will be shown in such studies, that have looked at societies and material culture processes from an historical perspective. This is so because in India, we tend to look at traditional subsistence based societies as windows to the past. Historically the colonial era has had a tremendous impact upon marginal societies, and it would also be the purpose of this volume to see how these processes have affected these societies. It is envisaged that this book will be a comprehensive account of the types of ethnoarchaeological research being carried out in India, by Indian or otherwise elsewhere, so far as it involves exposition of methods and results of studies in the subcontinent. At the very least this is meant to inform the graduate and the postgraduate students in archaeology about the latest applications in this field and at the most it would also aim to inform the practitioners as to the latest developments in ethnoarchaeology.

GUIDELINES FOR PAPERS

Contributors are requested to limit their papers to about 4,000 words, providing a succinct abstract in about 400 words and also providing a list of keywords. Any standard bibliographic and footnote or endnote convention should be followed that would be acceptable to a leading publishers. Tool and material culture drawings, maps to scale, photographs and line drawings and plates of other types, would all be acceptable.

PUBLICATION TIMELINE

As most of those being contacted have already established their credentials in the field, no more than three months from the date of the issuance of this circular, is permissible for sending of contributions.

THEMES FOR CONTRIBUTORS:

1. The origins of ethnoarchaeology in India: origins and history.
2. Differing uses of ethnographic analogy in India
3. Post-depositional processes
4. The study of settlement patterns
5. Craft traditions and their ethnoarchaeological study
6. Th ethnoarchaeological approaches to the study of rock art
7. Indigenous views of the past or is there an indigenous archaeology in India?
8. Conservation of tribal heritage in India
9. Myth as history in tribal and folk society
10. Ethnoarchaeological perspectives on who is indigenous to India
11. Ethnoarchaeology of monuments: the difference between donors and recipients in the interpretations of monuments
12. Ethnoarchaeology as history.

Ajay, 2008.

P.S.

At least three months elapsed since this notice went-up and no responses as yet.

Ajay, 2008.

Street Things of Subaltern India: The Case of Varanasi

By

Ajay Pratap
Department of History,
Faculty of Social Sciences
Banaras Hindu University
Varanasi

Abstract

Thing theory, at present, addresses, in a very wide-way, the life of things archaeological. What is thing theory you may ask? First of all I would, in that case, refer you to Arjun Appadurai's The Social Life of Things which is a very interesting book that for once elevates the concerns and methods of the archaeologists from the dust-bins of history. Appadurai considers, for instance, the symbolic and ritual value of objects apart from simply their use-value, a fact archaeologists have been harping-on ever since archaeology got started. Thing theory, more precisely, is a theory developed by University of Columbia archaeologists that considers the various discourses that arise from treating objects (whether modern or ancient) as in some way having a life, in the sense that it effects the way people see, think and behave, that deserves attention. From such a perspective what we traditionally consider inert is seen as imbued with some (social) life. It is like Kabir said " Jo tu Pahan Pujo, To Main Pujun Pahar, Ta Te To Chaaki Bhali, Peece Khaye Sansar".

It is old hat to be studying modern material culture (eg. Daniel Miller, Christopher Tilley) after the landmark volume The Archaeology of US the garbage project and so on. Away from the shopping-malls, and the gregantopolis generated artifacts, why may we look at things of rural small-scale things society - such as craft, in the Indian context? The simple answer in my view that the craft tradition of India dates from at least the indus valley period and as it is still ongoing, competing with most things modern, that we may not by any means over-look it. This would represents a major shift in archaeology from focussing on urban (eastern and western) centered thing-theory. Uttar Pradesh is unusually rich in crafts. These are usually composed of wooden toys, clay idols of gods and goddesses, glass and lac bangles, the very fine silks silk, imitation carpets from Bhadohi, the very colourful and fine Khurja Pottery, elegant locks from Aligarh, and fine Chikan from Lucknow.

A fact many western archaeologists are not at all aware of about India is that here places are usually recognized by what they produce. If it were Bihar we would say Luckeesarai Ka Sindur (Vermilion), Barh Ka Ramdana (sago) Laddoo, Buxar Ka Papri (sweet), Silao Ka Khaja (ssweet), Khagaria Ka Machchli (fish) and Dahi(curd), Hajipur Ka Kela(banana) and so on.

When we come to the issue of what these (things) are, in the undiscovered subaltern social discourses (in the east and someday in the west), we are at once confronted with an atlantic ocean of small things forgotte but quite clearly remembered by Indian.

This paper takes the case of knick-knacks, tit-tats, bit-bats, pick-packs, and zit-zats, and the rest of the things subaltern things, that are present, away from the gaze of the hoi polloi and the many and luxurious shopping arcades and plazas that dot the urban jungle of India – the Gucci, the Zbarro, The Van Heusen, The Axe, The Flood of New–Make Cars, Ford, Mercedes, Toyota, Maruti, The Skoda, The Chanel, Jacuzzis, ray-bans and speedo swimming trunks – this paper takes the case of what our millions of subaltern consume (other than food that is) when they invade the urbanias at the time of fairs and festivals (Melas).

And what are these melas? A shop-stall houses a man surrounded by five hundred deadly poisonous snakes, he is non-chalant, even as a fifteen foot cobra slithers all over him…he says “ yeh (this) dakshin bharat (south India) ka (is) naag hai (is cobra is)…wahan (there) ka (is) jaisa (like) aadmi (person) kala (black) vaisa (similitude, analogy, but ultimately metaphor and not metonymy) saanp (snake) kala (snake black snake)…then the cobra slithers away.

There are many other things in various shops and thelas and by roadside vendors on display in Indian streets: from cheap china-make transistor radios, toches, flashlights, mock fibre-optics, thirteen rupee flashlights, key-rings, ear-rings, ribbons, alta (the red-fluid with which women colour their toes), strogly perfumed-hair-oils, and rollled-gold jewellery and all in the mingle-mangle and justle-jostle of the Indian bazaar (ah! The catharsis offered at much cheaper rates than in malls), to shiny gadgets, horses, toy-pistols, toy-carts, balloons, flutes for children to play with, and now again made in China small clay images of Ganesha in a city like Varanasi, and peanut-stalls, local eats - laktho, namkeen, tilkut, khurma, chikki, to puri-bhajji and other eats, Indians are perpetually surrounded with these things of all shapes and sizes and priced variously for various categories of society. This paper wishes to analyze what things are offered for sale, who buys them, and with what consequences. Of course as the prosenium for such things is the great Indian street thus all things are not for sale alone.

Ajay, 2008.

A holy man was having a conversation with God one day and said, 'Father, I would like to know what Heaven and Hell are like.' So God led the holy man to two doors.

He opened one of the doors and the holy man looked in. In the middle of the room was a large round table. In the middle of the table was a large pot of stew, which smelled delicious and made the holy man's mouth water.

The people sitting around the table were thin and sickly. They appeared to be famished. They were holding spoons with very long handles that were strapped to their arms and each found it possible to reach into the pot of stew and take a spoonful.

But because the handle was longer than their arms, they could not get the spoons back into their mouths.

The holy man shuddered at the sight of their misery and suffering.

God said, 'You have seen Hell.'

They went to the next room and opened the door. It was exactly the same as the first one. There was the large round table with the large pot of stew which made the holy man's mouth water. The people were equipped with the same long-handled spoons, but here the people were well nourished and plump, laughing and talking.

The holy man said, 'I don't understand.'

It is simple,' God said. 'It requires but one skill. You see they have learned to feed each other, while the greedy think only of themselves.'

It's estimated that 93% won't forward this. If you are one of the 7% who will, forward this with the title '7%'. I'm in the 7% - and I will always share my spoon with you!!!

'be what you are and say what you feel....b'coz those who mind don't matter....and those who matter don't mind.'

ramendranathsinha, 2008.