GUWAHATI, May 14 - Evidences of early civilisation or culture formation in the State have now been found convincingly. A team of researchers and students of the Gauhati University (GU) Anthropology Department, led by Prof Abdullah Ali Ashraf, has now come up with the proof to confirm such culture formation, which can be dated back to about 3,000 years, that is the Stone Age.
Talking to The Assam Tribune, Prof Ashraf said pottery, which were found together with stone implements at Bambooti near Dudhnoi river, are morphometrically and technometrically quite significant in a sense that for the first time they establish a localized origin and development of culture in Assam during the Neolithic Age, around 3,000 years back. These findings refute the common belief that Northeast India lacks any traces of early culture formation, he said.
Elaborating, Prof Ashraf said the GU Anthropology Department, during its annual field training to students, discovered the earliest charu (salver) and other earthen pots meant for cooking rice and making pitha-pana (rice-cake) � a customarily controlled, most common and popular cuisine elaborately used in Assam and the rest of Southeast Asia.
In this field-training course, Prof Ashraf was assisted by two research scholars � Anamika Gogoi Duarah of Arya Vidyapeeth College and Rita Deka, besides a number of student trainees of the GU Anthropology Department.
During the exploration, the team discovered the Bambooti prehistoric site of Neolithic period. The site is located on the Assam-Meghalaya border, close to Dudhnoi river, near Damra in Goalpara district. It is located on the slope of Bambooti-abri (hill). The survey of this prehistoric site revealed that though it is a �slope site�, its �implementiferous� zone was found undisturbed as the particular area was culturally serving as the �kitchen midden� (called suwapatoni in local term) of the Stone Age (Neolithic) inhabitants. This prehistoric garbage-pit yields ground and polished stone implements along with used pottery and charcoal.
Potteries, which were found together with stone implements, are morphometrically and technometrically quite significant in a sense that for the first time they establish a localized origin and development of culture in Assam during the Neolithic Age, around 3,000 years back.
Interestingly, the site as a whole yields a proportionately large number of stone abrader, which signifies the mode of operation of the other stone implements by the early inhabitants of the area. Again, against the general impression that the Neolithic celts were solely used as agricultural or craftsman�s tool, the circumstantial evidences of these findings further suggest that these celts could also be used as day-to-day household implements, prior to entering into the Metal Age.
The geomorphology of the site, along with the material content, clearly indicates that Bambooti is a Neolithic habitation site either depending on intensive food collection (harvesting wild cereals) or entering into food-producing stage. The palaeo-environs of the locality offer a favourable situation for adopting both the subsistence strategies. In the given context the presence of culinary pottery at the site clearly suggests that the Bambooti Neolithic inhabitants practised production economy along with gathering as an �economic equilibrium� and they were enjoying a settled way of life.
Three pottery samples from Bambooti kitchen midden have been sent to the Luminescence Dating Laboratory of the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, Dehradun for optical stimulated luminescence (OSL) age determination tests. Apparently, the samples give an average age of 3,226�0.06 years BP (before present). This is the earliest evidence of existence of rice-cake not only in Assam but in the whole of Southeast Asia and South Asia. Typo-technologically identical charu (salver) is continuing to exist till date in Assam without any basic changes, said Prof Ashraf.