A joint study by the Indian Institute of Technology (Kharagpur) has found evidence of cultural continuity in Vadnagar — the Prime Minister’s native village — even after the Harappan collapse, thus making it likely that the “Dark Age” was a myth.
“From deep archaeological excavation at Vadnagar, a consortium of scientists from IIT Kharagpur, Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), and Deccan College has now found evidence of a human settlement that is as old as 800 BCE contemporary to late-Vedic/pre-Buddhist Mahajanapadas or oligarchic republics,” the institute said in a press release circulated on Friday.
“The study also indicates that the rise and fall of different kingdoms during the 3,000-year period and recurrent invasions of India by central Asian warriors were driven by severe change in climate like rainfall or droughts. The findings [have been] just published in a paper titled ‘Climate, human settlement, and migration in South Asia from early historic to medieval period: evidence from new archaeological excavation at Vadnagar, Western India’ in the prestigious Elsevier journal Quaternary Science Reviews,” it said.
