A 4500 year old site was recently
discovered in North western India. Earlier, in India, the evidence of one of the world’s
oldest
civilisation found was the Harappan site in Lothal, India. Now yet another site, as large as the Lothal site was
discovered in Puthad village in Jodia taluq, in Jamnagar district of Saurashtra state. This discovery was made by a group of teachers and students of MS University during their annual excavation programme which had already run for forty days. The excavating team unearthed, among several other interesting finds, a huge wall, a few ovens to melt metals and kilns to make clay utensils. It is most certain that the 270 metres long wall that stood 2.3 metres high from the ground surface on a huge mound could have been built to fortify a village.When studied, the configuration of the wall showed that the village enclosed could have had a spread of about eleven hectares. There are traces of settlement inside as well as outside the fortified wall. According to experts the newly discovered site, located on a mound locally called Jedak ni tekri (Jedak’s hillock), could thus be as large as the Lothal site discovered earlier.The Lothal and the Puthad sites aren’t the only two sites belonging to the ancient Harappan civilisation. So far, in Saurashtra there are more than 300 such Harappan sites called Sorath Harappan, each undisputedly standing for the ancient culture and civilisation of India. Ajith Prasad, a Reader in the MS University had led the team of teacher-student excavators. He was of the opinion that the village encompassed by the wall comprised residences and areas for carrying out craft activities. The settlement outside the fortifying wall was of those people who were not included in the village administration or social life.