South Indian Chalcolithic

Abstract

A gradual process of development speeded by favorable climatic changes, innovations, and increased cultural contacts led to the development of the Chalcolithic cultures of the Deccan between 4000-2700 b.p. With the decline of the Harappan civilization in nearby Gujarat, the people and their influence moved southward into the Deccan, where they merged with existing Neolithic and Chalcolithic communities and established rural economies based on agriculture and pastoralism. In Central India and Deccan, these early farming communities continued in unbroken succession up to 2700 b.p., with slight regional variations and development in the ceramic and cultural assemblage. The reasons behind the subsequent desertion of most of these settlements by the end of the 2d millennium or as in the case of the Jorwe Culture by 2700 b.p. is to date unknown, but warfare with the Iron Age Megalithic people is a distinct possibility.