Rajasthan to Junnar: Deccan College plans a host of excavations

PUNE: The Deccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute hopes to expand its area of work to new sites, this year.
Archaeologists from the college will focus on Pachamta in Rajasthan, Fort Ghangad near Lonavla, Iron Age burials in Vidarbha and Satavahana sites in Konkan. Excavations of sites in Tikoda in Madhya Pradesh, Rakhigarhi in Haryana and the ancient ruins near Junnar, near Pune will continue.
Vasant Shinde, senior archaeologist and vice chancellor/director at the Deccan College Postgraduate and Research Institute, told TOI that Pachamta near Udaipur is the site of an early Chalcolithic community.
"We do not have much information about this site, hence the excavation here will tell us the connection between this community and Maharashtra and its adjoining regions. This site may have been dug up by local farmers for agriculture. The excavation will look at saving the remains found here," said Shinde.
There are early iron-age burials in Vidarbha which researchers want to excavate, this year. "We will excavate sites after a survey of locations. We may be able to find the beginning of Iron Age, the technology used by people associated with this age, their settlement patterns, among other things, here," said Shinde.
A survey in Konkan is on the cards to identify sites which may unearth more information on the Satavahana dynasty. "Researchers in the college stumbled upon a group of early historic rock-cut caves in this region last year. The survey aims at exploring Satavahana sites from Alibag to Chiplun," he added.
Closer home, excavations at fort Ghangad near Lonavla may be taken up, once the Union government grants permission.
Sachin Joshi, researcher at Deccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute, said, "Explorations and mapping have already been undertaken at this fort last year. We have sent the details to the Union government."
He said there were a total of five, partly-buried structures with their plinths intact. "These structures were at least 300 years old. We found three water cisterns on the topmost part of the fort, a site of a residential complex. After crossing the first gateway of the fort, we found a rock-cut cave, which may date back to 11th or 12th century CE," Joshi added.
There are no written documents and hence excavations here are necessary, he added.
More excavations will be carried out at Tikoda, a Stone Age site. "So far, we have excavated stone tools from this site. Evidence on food residue was missing during the earlier excavations. If we come across food residues during subsequent excavations, it may be a significant discovery because little is known of the food habits of this period," Shinde said.
More work in Rakhigarhi is in order. Last year, researchers from the college began to find the cultural sequence of the site, but could not go further down to its natural level due to the thickness of the deposits. "We hope to complete the sequence work this year. We are also planning large-scale work to unearth a part of Rakhigarhi," he said.