NEW DELHI, INDIA, March 4, 2009: At least 73 burials have been unearthed just 60 km from the Indian capital, indicating the largest Harappan cemetery found to date. The excavations could clear many gaps in history, archaeologists said Wednesday.
Archaeologists from three universities have been at work for three seasons, excavating the 20-hectare-site of the ancient civilization at Farmana, in Haryana’s Rohtak district, in the Meham region. Their work could provide a breakthrough in the study of the Harappan civilization.
“Harappan cemeteries are very rare and that too in such huge numbers,” according to professor Osaga Uesugi of the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature in Kyoto, Japan. The institute has financed the project and provided technical expertise. The local partners are the Maharshi Dayanand University, Rohtak and Deccan College Post Graduate and Research Institute, Pune under the aegis of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI).
“We have uncovered an entire town plan. The skeletal remains seem to be in the 2500 BCE to 2000 BCE period – this is when the civilization prospered the most,” said Vasant Shinde, professor of the department of archaeology in the Pune institute and director of the excavation project.
Shinde said the findings could resolve gaps and myths in history. “The Harappans were thought to be homogenous but the findings here point to a different possibility. While the core principles of customs and town planning are similar to what we find in the main Harappan cities in Kutch region and Pakistan, there is still variety in pottery shapes, seals and other elements in the artifacts found buried with the skeletal remains,” Shinde said.