PADTA BET (Syllabus: GS Paper 1 – History)

Context: Recently excavated from a hillock known as Padta Bet, a skeleton, pottery artifacts, and animal bones indicate a 5,200-year-old Harappan settlement, situated 1.5 km from the Early Harappan necropolis of Juna Khatiya.

Padta Bet

• Discovery: Within the four-hectare area of Padta Bet, researchers unearthed two distinct localities during excavation.
• Locality 2 Artefacts: Locality 2 yielded artefacts spanning the Early, Mature, and Late Harappan eras, covering a timeline from 3,200 BC to 1700 BC.
• Locality 1 Artefacts: Artefacts from Locality 1 predominantly belong to the Mature and Late Harappan eras.
• Significance: The discovery of a skeleton, alongside pottery artefacts and animal bones, provides compelling evidence of a 5,200-year-old Harappan settlement at Padta Bet.
• Proximity to Juna Khatiya: Padta Bet, located 1.5 km from Juna Khatiya, an Early Harappan necropolis, supports the theory of the graveyard serving multiple smaller settlements.
• Strengthening the Theory: This latest find strengthens the hypothesis that Juna Khatiya may have functioned as a communal burial ground for several nearby Harappan settlements.

Harrapan Civilization

• About: The civilization is named Harappan because Dayaram Sahni first excavated its site in 1921.
• Harappan civilization surpassed the sizes of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia civilizations.
• Bordered by: 

oThe northernmost site of the civilization is Manda (Jammu-Kashmir).

oThe southernmost site is Daimabad (Maharashtra).

oThe easternmost site is Alamgirpur (Uttar Pradesh).

oThe westernmost site is Sutkagendor (Pakistan-Iran border).

• Main Crops: Two types of Wheat and Barley. Evidence of cultivation of rice in Lothal and Rangpur (Gujarat) only.
• Other Crops: Dates, mustard, sesamum, cotton, rai, peas etc.

oFirst to produce cotton in the world so Greeks called them Sindon.