Wheels Chariots and Horses in India

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BEYOND HARAPPA: CHARIOTS AND HORSES IN PREHISTORIC INDIA Dr. Shiv

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BEYOND HARAPPA:
CHARIOTS AND
HORSES IN
PREHISTORIC INDIA
Dr. Shiv Sastry

2018
2
BEYOND HARAPPA: CHARIOTS AND HORSES IN PREHISTORIC INDIA
CONTENTS
Page No.
Index of Illustrations 3
Abstract 4
Chariots in India 5
Chariots in Cave Art 6
Miscellaneous Chariot and Wheel findings 15
Horse Bones 20
Horse Related Artefacts 23
Horse in Cave Art 23
Conclusions 25
Definitions and Dates of Chronological Jargon 26
Map of Important Prehistoric Sites 27
References and Further Reading 28
Dr. Shiv Sastry

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INDEX OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Image No. Page No.
Figure 1 5
Figure 2 6
Figure 3 10
Figure 4 10
Figure 5 11
Figure 6 12
Figure 7 12
Figure 8 13
Figure 9 13
Figure 10 14
Figure 11 15
Figure 12 16
Figure 13 16
Figure 14 17
Figure 15 18
Figure 16 19
Figure 17 19
Figure 18 21
Figure 19 24
Figure 20 24
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ABSTRACT
Linguists and philologist-historians propounded the theory that India had no horses or
chariots before 1500 BCE until people from Eurasia, riding on horse-drawn chariots are
touted to have come to India from Eurasia and composed the Vedas. This theory survives in
outdated references despite being disproved by evidence of wheeled vehicles and horses in
the region of the Harappan civilization dating back to 3500 BCE. These findings have been
disputed in a series of trivial quibbles. Surprisingly, reliable and scientifically validated
evidence of wheeled chariots and horses in other parts of India have never been collected
together in one source. This study is an attempt to remedy that. Published reports of the use
of chariots and horses from vast areas of India outside of the Harappan region, covering
more than a million square kilometers, has been collected and catalogued here along with
reference material and absolute radiocarbon dates where available. Further, an analysis of
chronology of chariots in Indian rock art is presented. There is no doubt that chariots and
horses were a familiar sight in India five thousand years ago. The myth of the origins of
horses and chariots from Eurasia needs to be laid to rest forever.
INTRODUCTION
The issue of horses, wheels and chariots in India has for too long revolved around the
question of the presence or absence of evidence of horses and horse related items in north-
west India over the area, and era, of the Harappan civilization. India is a huge land and
evidence of horses, chariots and wheels can be found in many parts of the country. In this
study, information about wheels, chariots and horses has been collected in order to make an
assessment of their earliest presence and use prehistoric India. Horse, chariot and wheel
findings from the Harappan region are not included in this review. The latter have been dealt
with extensively elsewhere and there is no dearth of information available (Kenoyer, 2004).
The “horse debate” being pinned to Harappa has been weighed down from constant
comparison with real or imagined dates for similar entities outside India. Much of this has no
bearing on India at all. In this study the dates or relative dates for horses, wheels and
chariots are assessed only from local evidence that is available, and no assumptions made
about inputs from cultures thousands of kilometers away outside India. Indian archaeology is
unique in having many zones that are bigger than some European countries, each with
different cultures and time periods - and the repetitive effort to build a connection to the
imaginary “equine Mecca” of Eurasia as has been done for Harappa will not be repeated
here.
The ancient evidence available for chariots in India ranges from the “Daimabad” model
chariot from Maharashtra, the recent excavation of an intact chariot in Uttar Pradesh and the
abundant visual confirmation of chariots in rock art in thousands of examples in central India.
In every case an assessment of antiquity based on the most accurate dating methods
available for that site is used and if absolute dating is unavailable a “consensus” type
analysis of antiquity has been done, based on published literature to take into account the
views of experts in the field.
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Finally this study looks at all the evidence available for the presence of horses in India and
the earliest dates for their presence in a particular area. Evidence of the existence of the
horse in ancient India ranges from toy and model horses that have been found in Harappa
and elsewhere, rock art, horse bone findings and evidence of horse related items such as
stirrups or bridle bits.
BRIEF HISTORY OF CHARIOTS

The oldest known chariots date from about 3000 BCE in Mesopotamia (Chondros, 2016) but
these apparently had solid wheels. Impressions of lighter spoked wheels appear on
Anatolian seals from the 2nd Millennium BCE. In addition, evidence of buried chariots has
been found in graves in Sintashta in Russia, dating back to about 2000 BC. Chondros et al
state that the war chariot was first developed in Mesopotamia by yoking a horse to a chariot
around 2000 BCE. An image of the “Standard of Ur” in the same paper shows chariots
drawn by donkeys in war scenes from 2600 BCE. (Figure 1)
Figure 1: Close up from the “Standard of Ur”
The chariot in the above image features protective side-screens and a “key-handle” shaped
device between the two draught animals to sort separate reins for each of them. The wheels
however are solid. A four wheeled chariot provides more space and stability for a charioteer
while providing some insurance against toppling or stoppage in case of damage to a wheel.
In a separate series of findings, chariots and horses buried in structures called “kurgans”
dating back to about 2000 BC have been found in western Russia.
CHARIOTS IN INDIA
ARCHAEOLOGICAL FIND OF AN ENTIRE CHARIOT

This is a unique find announced in June 2018 (Pioneer, 2018). Skeletons in coffins were
found buried alongside twin chariots in an archaeological layer dated to about 2000 BC in
Sanauli, Uttar Pradesh, about 80 km north of Delhi (Figures 2 & 5).
The Archaeological Survey of India has published a detailed report on this find (Vijay Kumar,
2018:735-755). The design of the chariot is sophisticated, with a high dashboard and a pole
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for a pennant. The solid wheels are studded with decorative triangular pieces of copper. It
will suffice to reproduce the conclusion of the report here:
“Conclusion: The chariots found at Sinauli belong to OCP* culture. It belongs to late phase of OCP
(around 2000 B.C.). The OCP people were using the copper hoard battle axes, harpoons and
antennae swords. It appears that they were importing copper and finished copper objects from all
over India. Some of the rock paintings of Chitrakoot reveal that Vindhyan area, south of river Yamuna
was invaded by copper hoard people. At that time, OCP people were using horses also for their war
machinery. From these rock paintings, it is very clear that the OCP people were using these during
the late phase of OCP. The find at Sinauli reinforces this conclusion because the chariots buried there
are horse driven light chariots used in wars, sports and game. These chariots continued to be used by
the local people as evident by Sanchi and Bharhut panels.”
*OCP = Ochre Coloured Pottery
Figure 2: Sanauli chariot
CHARIOTS IN CAVE ART IN INDIA

The presence of hundreds of depictions of wheeled chariots pulled by various animals in
Indian cave paintings is generally not well known in India. In fact these paintings are rarely
mentioned in articles that purport to document the history of wheeled vehicles in India. There
is a “consciousness gap” in Indian studies of chariots in which chariots in Indian narratives
and epics are mentioned, followed by a jump to the archaeology of Harappa, ignoring a gap
of several thousand years in between when Indians were assiduously covering cave walls
with rock art that included depictions of chariots. This is not surprising because Indian
historians have always taken the lead from western historians who did not even
acknowledge the possibility that ancient people could have painted on cave walls until the
Altamira cave paintings in Spain were discovered. Ironically a man called Carlleyle had
discovered and recorded ancient cave art in India even before the discovery and subsequent
European acceptance of the idea that ancient paintings could exist. Perhaps that is why
Dr. Shiv Sastry

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Indian cave art with a plethora of depictions of chariots has been ignored although they
serve as visible, two-dimensional evidence of ancient chariotry.
Another rhetorical, if absurd question that could arise from viewing Indian cave art as proof
of chariots in India from some ancient long-forgotten era is whether chariots in paintings
indicate that the painters actually saw chariots? Could cave artists of the past have imagined
chariots and imagined animals pulling chariots with wheels - in fact wheels with spokes?
After all, it could be argued that some paintings do depict fantastic, non existent creatures
and humans of grotesque sizes and forms. But the fact remains that the vast majority of
paintings represent humans and animals that have been proven to exist by means of
evidence other than paintings. Depictions of cattle, deer, poultry, rhinoceros and horses are
all backed up by findings of bones of those animals nearby. Human activity in the form of
stone tools and in a later era copper and iron weapons and tools is also evident from
examination of remains on cave floors. Some weapons of a unique type depicted in
paintings have also been found. These remains can often be assigned dates to assess their
age using a variety of methods. Early crude stone tools are followed by more sophisticated
“microlithic” stone blades and tools, and these are followed by copper objects and later iron.
Images of chariots also show a variety of design features, starting from the most rudimentary
type that appear to be just a horizontal axle with two wheels at either end, with the charioteer
simply standing on the axle and holding on to reins on an animal with platform to stand on
and no pole and yoke connecting the axle to the draught animals. Figures 7, 8 and 9
represent just such a crude chariot which was probably the easiest to fashion, and possibly
the earliest design that was one step up from a sled with no wheels dragged over the
ground. It is surely also a dangerous design and probably led to an untold number of serious
injuries and deaths. But the cave paintings show more sophisticated chariots as well, starting
from those with a platform for the charioteer, a pole and yoke to attach the chariot chassis to
the draught animal, and features to to separately control multiple horses or cattle yoked to
the - as can be seen in the Daimabad bronze (Figure 11).
Even with all this detail, it may not be easy to fix a date to say how old the cave painting
might be. But other clues come into play here. For a start the earliest and latest dates of
occupation of each cave can be assessed by the remains in there giving a date range within
which one can place the painting. Also - the predominance of remains of one type such as
microlithic tools as opposed to early stone tools or later metal tools would indicate the era in
which the cave was occupied or used by the maximum number of people. The weapons that
humans in paintings hold also offer a clue. Earlier microlithic spear points and arrowheads
do not have a “barb” pointing backwards unlike metal arrowheads (Figure 4). A spear point
or arrow head without a barb would either merely be an ineffective sharpened end of wood
or a more deadly sharp and hard microlithic spear or arrow tip fastened to the end of the
shaft. In other cases, axes carried by warriors in paintings are characteristic of the axe-head
shapes from Indian “copper hoards” of the chalcolithic era - dated to 2100 BCE (Hughes,
1989). There is no doubt whatsoever that the ancient cave art of India serves as a repository
of the history of a part of India from the prehistoric to the historic period.
There are tens of thousands of cave paintings in India especially in Madhya Pradesh and UP
just north of the Narmada river and close to the Ganga and Yamuna confluence at Prayag
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(Allahabad). Cave paintings cannot be dated directly (Bednarik, 2002) and their age must be
assessed by indirect means. Many people have studied Indian cave paintings in detail
(Pratap, Dubey-Pathak 2011, Allchin 1987, Misra 1997) and have made valuable
contributions to the location, styles, content and chronology, including absolute dating of
associated archaeological finds. However only Erwin Neumayer (Neumayer, 2016) has
concentrated on graphically documenting chariots in Indian cave art.
Neumayer has published online a 100 slide presentation with images, line drawing
reproductions and analyses of chariots and wheeled vehicles in Indian cave art. In the
introduction to his valuable work, he points out that the total number of depictions of wheeled
vehicles is around 200, among tens of thousands of rock art images, not all of which have
been studied.
Since the thrust of this work is to try and fix a date for the earliest depictions of chariots, a
few images of chariots from cave paintings have been selected as examples for analysis.
Direct dating of actual paintings is not possible, the dates for each painting must be
assessed using a combination of methods and sources. One method that has been
suggested is to analyse the patina - the thin cover of dust, fungus and other matter over an
ancient painting in the knowledge that the painting underneath is older than the date of the
patina. However this is easier said than done. In practice, assigning a date to a painting
would start from the style and content of the painting. The father of Indian rock art studies
Walankar has developed a classification of painting styles and periods (Dubey-Pathak
2014). But this in itself is not enough. The dates need to be correlated with radiocarbon or
archaeological layer dates for that cave or those of nearby sites. Sometimes clear evidence
of the use of metal weapons such as arrows with barbs - a feature that was absent from the
earlier microlithic technique of arrow head design, is an indicator of an era when metal was
available. The particular metals found in a cave or excavation site are a pointer to the
chronology, indicating the copper age or iron age. The terminology used here can be
confusing from lack of standardization of jargon. The age when copper started being used is
termed chalcolithic and the iron age in India is called the megalithic age. The latter is an
inappropriate name that has got established historically by the archaeological finds of large
stone monuments long before it was discovered that these monuments coincided with the
very early use of iron in India.
In other cases the type of chariot, its sophistication and the decoration worn by people and
depicted on animals serve as an indicator of antiquity. In this study all chariot images that
suggest a demonstrably recent historic date, or even an iron-age date have been excluded.
Images have been selected where the chariot and people are depicted with clarity and
where the assessments of alternate sources suggest great antiquity.
Some general information exists that helps with the dating of cave art. V.N. Misra (Misra
1997) points out that the vast majority of cave art images are from the mesolithic period. In
India the mesolithic period was characterized by what are called “microlithic” stone tools -
very small and very finely made blades and knives. A collection of microliths at the
Manchester museum in the UK has been described as “The flints from Morhana Pahar are
known as microliths and include lunates or crescent shaped artefacts, rhomboids, trapezes, trapezoids
Dr. Shiv Sastry

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triangles, bladelets, drill points and so on. Some of them were mounted in wooden shafts to create
barbed weapons. Some were found still ‘glued’ in position in their wooden armatures using bitumen
at the prehistoric site of Mehrgarh in Pakistan.” (Ancient Worlds, 2017).
Dubey-Pathak (2014) places the mesolithic phase from 8000 BCE to 2500 BCE. Neumayer
places most of the older rock art images in the so called “Chalcolithic” era - when copper
technology started appearing and he dates the appearance of copper axes of the “copper
hoard” type in rock art. Allchin places the pottery painting style of North India in the
chalcolithic era which she dates as the “second and third millennia BC in North India”. She
points out that the rock paintings are in the same style as Chalcolithic pottery. V.N. Misra
dates the Chalcolithic Kayatha culture near Ujjain to between 2000 and 1800 BCE. The
Chalcolithic phase ended with the Iron age in India, which is known to have commenced by
as early as 1800 BCE (Tewari 2003) and evidence for this is available from Uttar Pradesh,
Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh using absolute dating methods. From this information one
could safely say that the rock art phase of India depicting chariots was primarily in the cusp
between the late microlithic and early chalcolithic eras - extending over a time period of 2500
BCE to 1500 BCE.
With this baseline established we can now look at a few representative images of chariots
from cave art and see if any conclusions can be reached about their chronology. One
interesting and clear image of a chariot comes from Morhana Pahar, near Mirzapur (Figure
3). Mirzapur is in Uttar Pradesh, on the banks of the Ganga between Prayag (Allahabad) and
Varanasi. The paintings in these caves are historically significant because they were the first
rock art in India discovered by a man called Carlleyle who made notes but never published
them. The notes were found later in Britain and made public after his death. V.N. Misra
(1997) has this to say about Carlleyle “..his observations on rock paintings are truly precocious
because it took archaeologists in Europe a long time to accept the existence of stone age art”.
Carlleyle actually found rock art in India before the Altamira cave paintings discovered in
Spain opened archaeologists’ eyes to the fact that cave art could survive for thousands of
years (Ancient Worlds, 2017).
Figure 3 is a section from a slide by Erwin Neumayer (2016) showing two chariots in one
frame. The chariot in the upper right corner has been described by Bridget Allchin (Allchin
1987) as “showing two armed men waylaying a chariot drawn by four horses in dark red overdrawn
in white, from one of the rock shelters at Morhana Pahar in the Vindhya hills. Probably late Bronze
Age or Early Iron Age.” This would place the upper chariot image in the 2000 to 1500 BCE
time period because the Iron age in India had a started by 1500 BCE. The reason for placing
it in an age when metals were known is probably because the arrows in the image have
barbed tips - which are characteristic of metal arrows. Figure 4 identifies the barbs in an
image of an iron arrow from Hallur in Karnataka 1000 BCE.
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Figure 3: Morhana Pahar
Figure 4
Looking at more details of the four-horse chariot in the upper right-corner of the Morhana
Pahar cave painting shown in figure 3 - one can say that it is an advanced design with a
cage-like protection for the charioteer in the front and sides. It also has light, spoked wheels.
Both these features suggest a relatively more recent date. Ajay Pratap (2011) has noted that
neolithic tools and megalithic burials have been found in Morhana Pahar. Megalithic
suggests the beginning of the Iron age in India - 1800 BCE. The arrows held by the men
around the chariot are barbed (metal) arrows, Given the available information it would not be
out of place to date the upper chariot image in Figure 3 to the 1800 to 1500 BCE period. In
Dr. Shiv Sastry

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comparison it must be noted that the 2000 BCE Sanauli chariot (Figures 2 & 5) is of similar
in design - though made for just two horses.
Figure 5: Chariot excavated at Sanauli, Uttar Pradesh. Two chariots side-by-side
We can now turn our attention to the second, four-wheeled chariot in Figure 3. A much better
colour image of the same chariot can be seen in Figure 6. This is a remarkable image. The
artist, and possibly the time period of this chariot are probably different from the upper
chariot of Figure 3. The draught animals are drawn in a completely different style and appear
to be the work of a different artist. The artwork shows a four wheel chariot with an unusual
feature - the front wheels are set very close to but inboard of the rear wheels. Four wheeled
chariots are by nature more stable for a charioteer and warrior rider, but the idea of having a
narrower axle to set one set of wheels inboard of the other is possibly to reduce overall
chariot length and weight. This chariot also features a two loops on the proximal part of the
draught pole probably to separate the right and left reins. Neumayer speculates that the
chariot has only two wheels and the other wheels are stylistic conversions of wheels from an
earlier drawn chariot into umbrellas of honour. This is unlikely. Image enhancement of a
good quality colour image shows that this chariot has been drawn as a four wheeled chariot
right from the outset. The axles of both wheels are acceptably parallel which is unlikely to be
an accident. The rim of the right rear wheel can be seen to clearly overlap the inboard right
front wheel as expected. The axle line of the front wheels is exactly in line with the front of
the chariot. Curiously, the image shows a spoked rear wheel but the front wheels have been
depicted with lines of dots rather than spokes. This could well represent a solid wheel similar
to the decorative design on the solid wheels of the Sanauli chariot (Figure 5), but this is only
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speculation because it is unlikely (though not impossible) for a chariot to have one pair of
spoked wheels and another pair of solid wheels.
Figure 6: Morhana Pahar (Image source: Rock Art of India)
Next we examine another image from Neumayer’s excellent collection, labelled C 30 from a
cave near Kathotia in Madhya Pradesh (Figure 7). Kathotia is a cave complex close to the
famous Bhimbetka rock art site.
Figure 7: (Image source Neumayer 2016: C 30 Kathotia)
The chariot seen at bottom right in the image, below the row of horsemen appears to be a
rudimentary one with single axle between two spoked wheels. There is a looped structure
fixed to the axle whose purpose is not clear. The surrounding horsemen do not appear to
have metal-tipped weapons.
In Figure 8 the chariot, once again, is an axle with wheels but the looped cross-bar is in a
vertical orientation and seems to serve as a handhold for the passenger on the chariot. The
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axle in this case appears to be two separate logs of wood lashed together in the center,
serving as a footboard. In this chariot, like the ones in figures 7 and 9, there is no yoke
connecting the axle to the draught animals. The charioteer holds the reins and appears to
balance on the axle and the traction force driving wheels appears to come via the reins and
through the charioteer’s feet on the axle (Neumayer, 2016). This appears to be an unsafe
and rudimentary design that probably represents an early model chariot.
Figure 8: (Image source Neumayer 2016: C 37 Firengi)
Figure 9 below is part of a line drawing of a Kathotia rock art painting by Neumayer,
numbered C 31. In this instance the single axle chariot has a cross beam and bars to serve
as a platform for an archer to stand behind the charioteer. It appears that the platform is
being dragged on the ground while the archer has his hands free. This innovation would
impart more lateral stability to the riders compared to the single axle model of Figure 8. Note
that the archer in this figure has barbed (metal) arrows. Dragging a platform across rough
ground while being drawn by draught animals can be seen even today (Figure 10).
Figure 9: Line drawing by Neumayer
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Figure 10 is a video-grab from the Kaalapootu cattle-race in Kerala where the yoked cattle
run at breakneck speed around a flooded paddy field while the driver stands on a “surfboard”
that is dragged behind the charging animals. There are no wheels.
Figure 10: Video grab from Kaalapootu cattle race, Kerala
In every case the rudimentary single-axle chariot appears to have a broad wheelbase from
an elongated axle, which would provide great lateral stability and resistance to toppling while
being pulled at high speed. All the images show spoked wheels suggesting that the
knowhow and materials for making spoked wheels were readily available in the late
mesolithic and early chalcolithic era.
Coming to the chronology of the single axle chariots depicted in figures 7, 8 and 9 we have a
few pointers to assist us. The horse riders in Figure 7 seem to be carrying spears whose tips
are compatible with the appearance of microlithic spear points. They do not appear to be
using metal spear tips which would show barbs. On the other hand the archer in Figure 9
has barbed arrows suggesting a later chalcolithic age when copper metal came into use. In
each case the chariot design is primitive and rudimentary and virtually identical suggesting
similar antiquity of both images. The chariot design is certainly more crude than that of the
chariots seen in Figures 3 and 5, The absence of metal spear tips but the appearance of
barbed (metal) arrow tips suggests an era when metal tips were available to some while
remaining out of reach of others. This would indicate a transition phase between mesolithic
and chalcolithic - which would put the painters of Figures 7 and 9 in the early chalcolithic - or
the middle or late centuries of the third millennium BCE .
With this it is possible to say with some degree of confidence that chariots were a
recognizable part of life in India by 2500 BCE. It is likely that the earliest chariots must have
appeared at least 500 to 1000 years before these images were painted placing the antiquity
of chariots in central India to a time period in the 4th millennium BCE.
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MISCELLANEOUS CHARIOT AND WHEEL FINDINGS
1. THE DAIMABAD BRONZE AND SIMILAR CHARIOTS

Daimabad is in Maharashtra - about a thousand kilometers south of the main area of the
Harappan civilization sites. Among a hoard of large copper objects including a cast
rhinoceros, elephant and a water buffalo was found one of the world’s best examples of a
prehistoric model chariot cast in copper (Figure 11)
Figure 11: Daimabad chariot (Image credit: Wikimedia Creative Commons

Licence)
The chariot is seen yoked to two humped bulls but the design of the chariot is one that can
be yoked to horses. The Daimabad site in which these objects were found was first occupied
in 2000 BCE and occupation continued up to 1000 BCE after which the site remained
unoccupied (Dhavalikar, 1983). That would place this bronze chariot firmly between 2000
and 1000 BCE. The objection that the copper of this object contains a little over 1% Arsenic
as well is of little consequence. All copper of that era has Arsenic as a contaminant. The
objection that these large copper objects date from an era when there was a copper
shortage, and therefore must be dated to a later era is clearly misplaced. The Daimabad
objects are contemporaneous with the large copper hoards of north India - many of which
had tens or even hundreds of kilograms of copper tools and weapons (Agrawal, 1969). The
consensus is that the Daimabad chariot, which shows features of Harappan chariots belongs
to the late Harappan era of about 1800 to 1500 BCE.
There exists a cave-art painting that has a chariot similar to the Daimabad bronze chariot.
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This can be seen in Figure 12 from Chaturbhuj Nath nulla near Mandsaur in Madhya
Pradesh. The image has been enhanced to reveal the human shapes so the image colors
are not original.
Figure 12: (From Neumayer slide C 15 - colour enhanced)
The chariot here has spoked wheels on a single axle, but has a platform for the warrior-
charioteers to stand on and the twin draught animals are yoked with a single central pole
and an orthogonal yoke. The basic design of this chariot appears to be similar to that of the
Daimabad bronze chariot. There are 3 men in the image, two on the chariot and a third
appears to be leading the chariot. All three men are armed with “copper hoard” type axes.
The characteristic “muffin” profile of the axe blades has been found in copper hoards and in
nearby archaeological sites.
Figure 13: (Yule 1985, Plate 6)

Kayatha axe head 1800-2000 BCE
Figure 13 shows the image of a copper axe-blade found in the nearby Kayatha
archaeological site. The Kayatha culture has been dated from 2000 to 1800 BCE. Figure 14
shows the same “muffin profile” axe blades found large numbers in Gungeria in Madhya
Pradesh. Kayatha is a significant name because at this site have been found bones of the
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true horse (Equus caballus). This is dealt with in more detail in the section on horse
evidence in India (vide infra). Not far from the site of the Chaturbhuj Nath nulla painting of
Figure 12 is a place called Kurada from where we have a firm 2100 BCE date for the copper
hoard found in that place (Hughes, 1989).
Figure 14: “Muffin profile” copper hoard axe heads from

Gungeria, Madhya Pradesh
With this we have several physical, 3-D correlations for the chariot image in Figure 12. The
design of the chariot is similar to the Daimabad bronze chariot dated to 1500 BCE. The axe
wielding men have axes of the type found in the 1800-2000 BCE Kayatha and Gungeria
copper hoards, and copper hoards of north India have been dated to 2100 BCE. So the
chariot painting of Figure 12 can reasonably be dated to about 2000 BCE.
INCISED IMAGE OF BULLOCK CART ON JORWA POTTERY

The evidence of a wheeled cart from Inamgaon, near Pune in Maharashtra must be put on
record although the antiquity and sophistication cannot be compared with finds from nearby
Daimabad and its bronzes. Inamgaon started with the Malwa culture prior to 1500 BCE and
this was succeeded by the Jorwe culture in the same area and that has been dated from
1400 to 1100 BCE. Excavations of the Jorwa culture habitation has thrown up pottery with
the incised image of a bullock cart with twin bullocks (Figure 15). The date of this layer is
well established to be the middle of the second millennium BC and the image of the cart on
pottery indicates that carts were well enough known by that period in the Maharashtra
region.
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Figure 15: Incised image of bullock cart on early

Jorwa pottery
IRON WHEEL RIM IN KARNATAKA

The Brahmagiri iron age-megalithic site in the south Indian state of Karnataka has been
studied in great detail. Its antiquity in early excavations was assessed to be in the region of
the 1000 BCE period. However absolute radiocarbon dates for Brahmagiri fall within the
range between 2140 and 1940 BCE (Morrison, 2005). The interesting find in Brahmagiri
relevant to this study is an iron wheel rim. (Figure 16) (Sudyka, 2010). In order to try and get
a fix on the antiquity of this wheel and other Brahmagiri iron artefacts, records of the original
layers of excavation were re-evaluated. All the iron objects in Brahmagiri were found in an
archaeological layer classified as “Megalithic culture” by the original excavator Mortimer
Wheeler (Anitha, 2009). The layers above and below did not reveal iron objects.
Figure 17 (modified from Anitha, 2009) shows details of the archaeological layers excavated
by Mortimer Wheeler in Brahmagiri. Layer 6 was marked by Wheeler as a Megalithic layer.
Absolute Carbon 14 dating from layer 6 (marked in red on the image) reveal that layer as
being from from 2000 BCE (Morrison, 2005). From this information it is possible that the iron
wheel rim fragment from Brahmagiri - an obvious spoked wheel could have been made as
early as 2000 BCE or 4000 years ago.
Dr. Shiv Sastry

19
Figure 16: Iron implements from the south Indian iron

age. No 13 is a 23 cm wheel tire from Brahmagiri. No .
14 is a horse bit from Sanur (14 cm)
Figure 17: Brahmagiri excavation layers (Wheeler) with

radiocarbon dates from Morrison(2005)
HORSE
BONES,
Dr. Shiv Sastry

20
HORSE RELATED ARTEFACTS AND IMAGES
HORSE BONES
The need to establish the antiquity of the horse in India, particularly the so called “true horse”
or Equus caballus, stems from the theory that horses were introduced to India around 1500
BC by migrants or invaders from Eurasia. While the theory has now been rendered
untenable by a great amount of new information, it keeps cropping up in academic journals
and lay media because it has become entrenched in literature over the last 200 years. The
reason why horses (and chariots) got entrenched in the “Aryan Invasion” theory in India is no
longer obvious to the hundreds, perhaps thousands of people who have expressed opinions
for and against the idea. In his book “The Horse, The Wheel And Language”, David Anthony
(Anthony, 2007) gives us a clue about how horses and chariots got pulled into the theory of
how languages might have moved from one place to another. He writes:
“Scholars noticed more than a hundred years ago that the oldest well-documented Indo-European
languages- Imperial Hittite, Mycenaean Greek, and the most ancient form of Sanskrit, or Old Indie-
were spoken by militaristic societies that seemed to erupt into the ancient world driving chariots
pulled by swift horses. Maybe Indo-European speakers invented the chariot. Maybe they were the first
to domesticate horses. Could this explain the initial spread of the Indo-European languages?”
Somehow speculation that horses and chariots may have played a role in the spread of
language got converted into an imagined historic dogma that horses and chariots played the
critical role of bringing migrants with a new language to India from elsewhere and that India
did not have horses, chariots or most of its current native languages before those people
reached India around 1500 BCE. This speculative construct, based on what are now known
to be unsubstantiated linguistic theories was conflated with archaeological finds in India.
Nineteenth and early twentieth century archaeological digs rarely concentrated on, and
consequently rarely reported horse bones . In a shamefully unscientific act of confirmation
bias, the absence of evidence of horse bones was concluded to be evidence of absence of
horses in India. These linguistics derived theories made their way into history books in a
travesty of guesswork being passed off as historic fact, while Indian archaeologists remained
innocent of the political-historical criticality of horse bones in their excavations. Many were
surprised and hurt by the criticism, even opprobrium they faced for merely identifying horse
bones as part of their work in India (Danino, 2006). The competence of Indian
archaeologists was questioned and they were blamed for confusing donkey bones for horse
bones by a community of historians for whom horses could not be found in India before 1500
BCE because they believed it to be so. Perhaps the best rejoinders came from Indian
archaeologists as quoted by Sajjan Kumar (2012):
“S.P. Gupta offers a sensible reply to the further objection that horse remains, if at all they are
accepted, rarely account for more than 2% of the total animal remains at any site. Pointing out that
the same holds true of the camel and elephant (animals undeniably present in Harappan sites), he
explains that low proportion is “simply because these animals are not likely to have been as regularly
eaten as cattle, sheep and goats as well as fish whose bones are abundantly found at all Indus-
Sarasvati settlements. With regard to non-depiction of the horse on Indus seal and others, S.P. Gupta
points out that the camel, wolf, cat, deer, nilgai, fowl, jackal are rarely or never found in [Harappan]
Dr. Shiv Sastry

21
art but their presence has been attested by bones. K.D. Sethna pertinently asks, “As there are no
depictions of the cow, in contrast to the pictures of the bull, which are abundant, should we conclude
that Harappa Mohenjodaro had only bulls.” Sethna goes further, he makes the opposite point that the
mythical unicorn is found on numerous seals, and asks,” was the unicorn a common animal of the
proto-historic Indus Valley.”
Appropriate rejoinders apart it is necessary to document and place on record the evidence
available for remains of the “true horse” - Equus caballus in India before 1500 BCE and for
indirect evidence of the use of horses by the archaeological findings of horse bits, bridle
equipment and stirrups from the prehistoric period.
As noted earlier details of all the horse remains from the Harappa/Indus-Saraswati
civilization area, which have been dealt with comprehensively in multiple publications
(Danino, 2006; Sajjan Kumar, 2012) will not be reproduced here barring a table listing the
finds of true horse bones from that area (Figure 18).
Figure 18: “True horse” Equus caballus bones from Harappan sites (Sajjan Kumar, 2012)
Outside of the Indus-Saraswati region the oldest horse bone finding is from Bagor in
Rajasthan at the base of the Aravalli hills, dated to 4500 BCE (Ghosh, 1990). Next we have
Kayatha, near Ujjain, and close to Bhopal which is associated with the famous Bhimbetka
cave rock art. Kayatha is a particularly interesting place. This is a site that has been
accurately dated. Bones of the true horse, Equus caballus have been found there. In
addition a terracotta model of a mare has been found (Danino, 2006). The finds in Kayatha
have been Carbon dated to between 2000 to 2450 BCE by Dhavalikar and 2450 to 1700
BCE by Possehl. (Danino, 2006; Possehl, 1992). Kayatha is also one of the places where
“copper hoard” weapons and artefacts have been found. From Mahagara near Allahabad,
nearly a thousand kilometers from the area of the Harappan civilization we have the bones
of the Equus caballus. In excavations here G.R. Sharma obtained six reliable absolute
Carbon 14 dates ranging from 2265 to 1480 BCE (Danino 2006) for the Mahagara horse.
From Hallur in Karnataka, Nagaraja Rao (Nagaraja Rao, 1971) writes:
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22
“Equus caballus gets associated with the chalcolithic phase of occupation dated to circa B.C. 1300
(Alur, supra p. 123). This is corroborated by the evidence at Sanganakal where Prof. Alur (1969) has
identified equine teeth from the deposits ascribed to circa B.C. 1500. ”
The radiocarbon dates for Hallur and Sanganakal are reported as follows (Ghosh, 1990)
Hallur: 1195 +/- 100, 1425 +/-110, 1710 +/- 105, 955 +/- 100, 1105 +/- 105 (all dates BCE)
with the last two dates representing a Neolithic-Megalithic overlap, Sanganakal: 1550 to
1585 +/- 105 BCE, 1590 +/- 110 BCE.
The specific bones diagnostic of the “true horse” that cannot be confused with other equids
like the ass or onager are few in number and rarely found. Nagaraja Rao notes that finding
the few small bones that could definitely be identified as bones from the true horse, Equus
caballus was always unusual in excavations of such an early period. In his study of
excavated bones in Hallur, Alur, who is also a trained veterinarian, positively identified two
bones being that of the Equus caballus. The specific bones identified by Alur bore the serial
numbers 212 and 517. The bone numbered 212 was a metacarpal “splint bone” from the
foreleg. This is one of the “diagnostic bones” of true horse and it was recorded as having
been found in Trench 2, layer 3, Period II. The bone with serial number 517 was also
diagnostic of horse. It was the second phalanx of a horse - a finger bone. Horses do have
finger bones, and like every other animal including humans the finger bones are very small,
unlike skull and leg bones. Bone 517 was found in Trench 2, layer 9, Period I, Phase II.
The Radiocarbon dates for periods I and II are as follows (Nagaraja Rao, 1971:14)
Period I Phase 1 circa BCE 1800-1500
Phase 2 circa BCE. 1500-1100
Period II circa BCE 1100-800
Thus the Hallur horse bones date from 1800 to 1500 BCE. Danino has this to say about
Alur’s experience after finding horse bones in a place where “Aryan horses” could not have
come from the Khyber pass by 1500 BCE:
When K. R. Alur, an archaeozoologist as well as a veterinarian, published his report on the animal
remains from the site, he received anxious queries, even protests: there had to be some error
regarding those horse bones. A fresh excavation was eventually undertaken some twenty years later
- which brought to light more horse bones, and more consternation. Alur saw no reason to alter his
original report, and wrote that his critics’ opinion “cannot either deny or alter the find of a scientific fact
that the horse was present at Hallur before the (presumed) period of Aryan invasion.” The claim that
horse finds are undated is therefore disingenuous.
Finally there is a report of the finding of horse bones in Marwan in Gujarat in a “Proto-
Harappan” site.
In summary bones of the true horse have been found across western, central and east-
central India dating from the 4500 to 2000 BCE, and in peninsular India from 1500 BCE.
These findings rule out the possibility that horses were first brought to India from the north-
west around 1500 BCE. They also serve as a reminder that arriving at history dates from
historical linguistics alone cannot be a substitute for hard data.
Dr. Shiv Sastry

23
HORSE RELATED ARTEFACTS

Aside from horse bones there are remains of horse related artefacts from various parts of
India. Horse bits are objects placed in a horse’s mouth in a gap between the horse’s teeth.
Cords called reins are tied to each side of the bit and these reins lead back to be held by the
horse rider and used to control the direction in which the rider wants the horse to go. Item
number 14 in Figure 16 shows an iron age horse bit found at Sanur in Karnataka. Iron horse
bits have been found in several places in the Vidarbha region in sites dated to around 800
BCE (Sontakke 2014). The presence of iron horse bits indicates a culture that breeds horses
and is familiar with them and with iron smelting technology. It is likely that horses would have
been known in the region for at least 500 years and it would be a reasonable presumption to
state that horses were known by the people in Vidarbha from at least the middle of the
second millennium BCE.
HORSES IN CAVE ART

Hundreds of horses have been depicted in thousands of rock art images in India. It is
surprising that very few people have paid attention to the information they provide about
horses in India. Chakraverty has done a unique data appraisal of animals and humans in
rock art in India (Chakraverty, 2013). In a total of over 6000 images form Bhimbetka, 27%
were of animals alone. The rest had humans associated with animals or other objects. There
are 561 images of horses and nearly 90% of these are with horse riders. There are 377
images of archers and armed men. These numbers are large enough to allow a fair
assessment of the antiquity of the paintings and the horses depicted in them based on the
fact that we have reliable dates for the chalcolithic era when copper tools began to be used
as well as reliable dates for the “copper hoard” type axes frequently seen in Indian rock art.
There are three basic types of images of weapon-carrying humans associated with horses.
1. Humans on horses with pointed spear tips that do not have barbs (Figure 7, Figure 19)
2. Humans on horses with spear tips which clearly have barbed (metal) tips (Figure 20)
3. Humans on horse drawn chariots with “copper hoard” type axes (Figure 12)
Horsemen carrying spears with barbed tips as in Figure 20 indicate metal tips. These have
been assigned dates of 2000 BCE (Vijaykumar, 2018). Warriors on chariots with copper
hoard axes as in Figure 12 may be assigned the same dates based on the dating of copper
hoards (Hughes, 1989). The two images of warriors on horses with spears bearing no barbs
(Figures 7 and 19) are likely to be carrying microlith tipped spears from the microlithic era
that preceded the chalcolithic phase. Those images are therefore compatible with earlier
dates of 2500 BCE. These dates correlate well with the finding of horse bones in Kayatha
and Mahagara dated as far back as 2450 BCE. A date of 2500 BCE is also compatible with
the assessment of antiquity of the primitive single axle yoke-less chariot depicted in Figure 7
where the horsemen nearby wield what appear to be microlithic (non metallic) spear tips.
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24
Figure 19:
(Pachmarhi) No barbed tip on spears
Figure 20: Barbed tips on spears of all horsemen: Chitrakoot (Image source
Vijaykumar, 2018)
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25
CONCLUSIONS
The need to specifically document reliable chronological evidence for the presence of
chariots and horses in Indian prehistory is a response to the claim made that neither of these
existed in India until they were brought to north-west India by migrants from Eurasia starting
from about 1500 BCE. Earlier studies in north-west India across the area of the Indus-
Sarasvati civilization (Harappan civilization) have established that wheels and chariots were
well known as early as 3500 BCE. Bones of the so called “true horse”, Equus caballus have
been found in many excavations of the region - which represents a civilization that was
thriving with horses and wheeled wagons long before 1500 BCE. But documentation of
chariots and horses in the central, southern and eastern parts of India has been unorganized
and fragmentary and this study makes a beginning to set that right.
The evidence indisputably proving that chariots existed in India before 1500 BCE, visible as
3-dimensional objects comes from the 2000 BCE Sanauli chariot excavation near Delhi and
the Daimabad bronze chariot of 1500 to 1800 BCE. Depictions of chariots in Indian rock art
take the dates of chariots back to 2500 BCE. The fact that most depictions of chariots
feature the advanced technology of spoked wheels as opposed to heavy solid wheels
suggests that wheels were well developed technology at the time of the paintings in the 3rd
millennium BCE. For the knowhow to have moved from solid wheel to light and strong
spoked wheels depicted across a region as big as Germany, one could reasonably deduce
that the technology had been in development for a millennium, suggesting that the
technology for chariots and carts with wheels in central India goes back at least 6000 years.
On the question of horses the evidence is more direct. Bones proven to be of the true horse
have been found and accurately dated from 4500 BCE in Bagor in Rajasthan, to 2000 BCE
in Mahagara in UP, and 1500 BCE in faraway Hallur in Karnataka. This represents a land
area of over 400,000 square kilometers in which horse remains dating well before 1500 BCE
have been found. In his 2018 report on the Sanauli chariot excavation, Vijay Kumar writes
that people have wrongly assumed that the horse in India came from central Asia. For north
India the closest source of horses was Tibet, which had its indigenous breed called
Rimpoche horses. The shortest path to Tibet from north India is just 150 km and evidence of
ancient trans-Himalayan trade is proven by the finding of copper anthropomorphic figurines,
iconic of the chalcolithic copper hoards of India , in Nepal. The trivial trans-Himalayan
distance can be put in perspective by comparing with the 4000 kilometer distance said to
have been traversed by mythical horse riding migrants who are alleged to have ridden to
India, crossing the treacherous Khyber pass en route.
It is clear that the widely quoted story that horses and chariots were brought to India from
Eurasia around 1500 BCE is erroneous and needs to be discarded. This will mean revision
of thousands of books and websites that carry this mis-historic construct. Along with this the
idea that words for horses and wheels appeared in ancient languages in India only after
1500 BCE must be corrected. The evidence proves that horses and chariots were both
known in India at least 5000 years ago and probably longer if one considers the time gap
between the appearance of new technology and its refinement and spread over a vast area
in prehistoric times.
Dr. Shiv Sastry

26
DEFINITIONS AND DATES OF CHRONOLOGICAL JARGON

Archaeologists and historians refer to very ancient period of time under broad headings
which are confusing and not clearly defined. These include names like acheulian,
pleistocene, holocene, palaeolithic, mesolithic, neolithic, microlithic, chalcolithic and
megalithic. To add to the confusion some of these eras belong to different periods of time in
different parts of the world and the eras overlap so that the identifying features of an earlier
era may be seen in a later era. Finally, the dates of these eras are not firmly known from all
over the world.
For the purpose of this study a few definitions are given below along with the dates that have
been applied. All these definitions and dates have been derived from one or more of the
papers and reading material quoted in the final section on references. In every case the
periods and dates used are relevant only to India and not to any other part of the world.
BCE means “Before Common Era”. It means the same as BC. 2000 BCE was 4000 years
ago (approximately). 4000 years ago can also be written as 4000 ybp (years before present)
or BP (before present). BCE is the term used in this study
• Pleistocene: From 125 million years ago until 12,000 years ago
• Holocene: From 12,000 years ago until today
• Mesolithic: Mesolithic in India stars from about 8000 BCE and continues to about
2000 BCE
• Microlithic: The “Microlithic” phase in India can be taken to mean the same as
mesolithic, although microlithic does not refer to time, but is descriptive of the small
or fine micro-tools of stone in the microlithic era.
• Neolithic: The Neolithic era followed the Mesolithic, but the Neolithic era is not
clearly defined for India, with the Chalcolithic era coinciding with Neolithic in north
and central India and “Megalithic” in South India
• Chalcolithic: The Chalcolithic era is when copper tools started being used in India -
and this happened in the late mesolithic era - between 3000 and 2000 BCE
• Megalithic: The Megalithic era refers mainly to south India. The exact start of the
Megalithic era is not known and the term is a misnomer based on the findings of
large stone burial structures in south India. But Megalithic can be taken to be the
same as “iron age” in India.
• Iron age: The Iron age started in India as early as 2000 BCE. South India seems to
have gone directly from Mesolithic to Iron age without an intervening Chalcolithic era.
Dr. Shiv Sastry

27
MAP OF IMPORTANT PREHISTORIC SITES

(Courtesy Google maps)
Straight line Distances from Khyber pass

• Hallur, Karnataka: 2000 km
• Daimabad, Maharashtra: 1700 km
• Bhimbetka, Madhya Pradesh: 1500 km
• Morhana Pahar, Uttar Pradesh: 1500 km
• Bagor, Rahasthan: 1000 km
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28
REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING:
Agrawal, D.P., The Copper Hoards Problem: A Technological Angle, 1969

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.827.6147&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Allchin, Bridget. South Asian Rock Art, Sir George Birdwood Memorial Lecture, Proceedings,
Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, 1987
Ancient Worlds. Prehistoric India at Manchester Museum I: Archibald Campbell Carlyle,

2017
https://ancientworldsmanchester.wordpress.com/2017/06/23/prehistoric-india-at-manchester-
museum-i-archibald-campbell-carlyle/
Anitha H.M. 2009 , Iron age early historic transition generating a database of archaeological
remains for a study of urbanization processes in early Karnataka,
http://hdl.handle.net/10603/104981
Anthony, David W., “The Horse, The Wheel And Language How Bronze-Age Riders From
the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World”, Princeton University Press, Princeton and
Oxford, 2007
Bednarik, Robert G. The Dating of Rock Art: a Critique, Journal of Archaeological Science
(2002) 29, 000–000 doi: 10.1006/jasc.2001.0711, available online at
http://www.idealibrary.com
Chakraverty, Somnath, Rock art in India: a data appraisal in Recent Discoveries and
Perspectives in Human Evolution: Papers arising from ‘Exploring Human Origins:Exciting
Discoveries at the Start of the 21st Century’ editor Sankhyan, Anek R. Manchester 2013
Archaeopress, Gordon House, 276 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 7ED, England
Chondros, Thomas G., The Evolution of the Double-horse Chariots From the Bronze Age to
the Hellenistic Times, FME Transactions (2016) 44, 229-236
www.mas.bg.ac.rs/_media/istrazivanje/fme/vol44/3/2_tghondros_et_al.pdf
Danino, Michel. The Horse and the Aryan Debate, Journal of Indian History and Culture of
the C. P. Ramaswami Aiyar Institute of Indological Research, Chennai, September 2006,
No.13, pp. 33-59
Dhavalikar, Daimabad Bronzes, in Harappan Civilization a contemporary perspective

Edited Gregory Possehl. Aris and Phillips, Warminster, England 1983
www.rhinoresourcecenter.com/pdf_files/121/1218186467.pdf
Dubey Pathak, Meenakshi Indian Rock Art - Prehistoric Paintings of the Pachmarhi Hills,
Bradshaw Foundation, 2011
http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/india/pachmarhi/index.php
Dr. Shiv Sastry

29
Dubey Pathak, Meenakshi, The Rock Art of the Bhimbetka Area in India. 2014
http://www.rockartscandinavia.com/images/articles/a14pathak.pdf
Ghosh, A. An Encyclopedia of Indian Archaeology, BRILL, 1990
Hughes, M.J. Appendix 2, Atomic Absorption Analysis Of Indian Copper Hoard Implements
In The British Museum Collections, from THE COPPER HOARDS OF THE INDIAN
SUBCONTINENT PRELIMINARIES FOR AN INTERPRETATION Published in the Jahrbuch
des Römisch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums Mainz 36, 1989 [1992] 193–275, ISSN 0076-
2741. http://crossasia-repository.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/509/1/00jrgzm_all.pdf
Kenoyer, J. M. 2004 In Bad unil Wagen: Der Ursprung einer Innovation Wagen im Vorderen
Orient und Europa (Wheel and Wagon - origins of an innovation), edited by M. Fansa and S.
Burmeister, pp. 87-106. Mainz am Rhein, Verlagg Philipp von Zabem.University of
Wisconsin- Madison, Jan 7,2004
Misra, V.N. Early Man and his Environment in Central India, Journal of the Palaeontological
Society of India, Vol 42, 1997, pp. 1-18
Morrison, Kathleen. (2005). Brahmagiri Revisited: a Re-analysis of the South Indian

Sequence. 271-275
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kathleen_Morrison/publication/258808676_Brahmagiri_
Revisited_a_Re-
analysis_of_the_South_Indian_Sequence/links/02e7e528f75e0cd417000000/Brahmagiri-
Revisited-a-Re-analysis-of-the-South-Indian-Sequence.pdf?origin=publication_detail
Nagaraja Rao, M.S. Protohistoric Cultures of the Tungabhadra Valley (a report on Hallur
excavations), 1st Edition 1971, M.S. Chintamani at the Eastern Press, J.C. Road,
Bangalore-2
Neumayer, Erwin. Chariots in the Chalcolithic Rock Art of Indian, A Slide Show, 2016
https://t.co/EogGAPWhay
Pioneer,The. 2000 BC chariots set to redefine Mahabharata age, 25 June 2018,

https://www.dailypioneer.com/todays-newspaper/2000bc-chariots-set-to-redefine-
mahabharata-age.html
Pratap, Ajay. Prehistoric Rock Art Imagery of the Vindhyas, Uttar Pradesh, India, 2011
https://www.academia.edu/16512644/Article_in_Ancient_India
Possehl, G. L. The Chronology of Prehistoric India: From Earliest Times to the Iron Age, from
Chronologies in Old World Archaeology, Third Edition, Edited by Robert Ehrich, U. of
Chicago Press, 1992
Dr. Shiv Sastry

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Rock Art of India: Rock Art of Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh

https://rockartofindia.webs.com/apps/photos/photo?photoid=171781470
Sajjan Kumar, Domestication of animals in Harappan culture: a socio−economic study

Researcher, 2012, http://hdl.handle.net/10603/7817
Sankalia, H.D, Ansari, Z.D, Dhavalikar M.K., 1969

Inamgaon: A Chalcolithic Settlement in Western India,
https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/10125/19138/1/AP-v14n1-139-146.pdf
Sontakke, Virag, Early Iron age archaeology of upper Wainganga valley with special
reference to gondia district , Chapter 3, pp 25-57, 2014
http://hdl.handle.net/10603/22698
Sudyka, J. 2010(2011). The “Megalithic” Iron Age Culture in South India – Some General
Re-marks. Analecta Archaeologica Ressoviensia 5, 359–401
Tewari, Rakesh. The origins of Iron-working in India New evidence from the Central Ganga
Plain and the Eastern Vindhyas, Antiquity, Volume 77, Issue 297, September 2003 , pp. 536-
544
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/origins-of-iron-working-in-india-new-
evidence-from-the-central-ganga-plain-and-the-eastern-
vindhyas/3986B90D94F333149BE7861683609BE9
Vijay Kumar, A note on chariot burials found at Sinauli district Baghpat UP, Indian Journal of
Archaeology Vol3, No.2, 2018 pp 735-755
http://www.ijarch.org/Admin/CompleteIssue/IJAVOL3NO2.pdf
Yule, Paul Metalwork in the Bronze Age in India, C.H. Beck’sche Verlagbuchhandlung,
Munich, 1985
http://crossasia-repository.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/1895/1/Metalwork_BronzeAge_India.pdf
Dr. Shiv Sastry
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BEYOND HARAPPA: CHARIOTS AND HORSES IN PREHISTORIC INDIA Dr. Shiv

Article · August 2018

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Image No. Page No.

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BRIEF HISTORY OF CHARIOTS

Figure 1: Close up from the “Standard of Ur”

ARCHAEOLOGICAL FIND OF AN ENTIRE CHARIOT

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Figure 2: Sanauli chariot

CHARIOTS IN CAVE ART IN INDIA

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Figure 3: Morhana Pahar

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Figure 5: Chariot excavated at Sanauli, Uttar Pradesh. Two chariots side-by-side

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Figure 6: Morhana Pahar (Image source: Rock Art of India)

Figure 7: (Image source Neumayer 2016: C 30 Kathotia)

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Figure 8: (Image source Neumayer 2016: C 37 Firengi)

Figure 9: Line drawing by Neumayer

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Figure 10: Video grab from Kaalapootu cattle race, Kerala

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MISCELLANEOUS CHARIOT AND WHEEL FINDINGS

1. THE DAIMABAD BRONZE AND SIMILAR CHARIOTS

Figure 11: Daimabad chariot (Image credit: Wikimedia Creative Commons

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Figure 12: (From Neumayer slide C 15 - colour enhanced)

Figure 13: (Yule 1985, Plate 6)

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Figure 14: “Muffin profile” copper hoard axe heads from

INCISED IMAGE OF BULLOCK CART ON JORWA POTTERY

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Figure 15: Incised image of bullock cart on early

IRON WHEEL RIM IN KARNATAKA

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Figure 16: Iron implements from the south Indian iron

Figure 17: Brahmagiri excavation layers (Wheeler) with

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HORSE RELATED ARTEFACTS AND IMAGES

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HORSE RELATED ARTEFACTS

HORSES IN CAVE ART

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Dr. Shiv Sastry

DEFINITIONS AND DATES OF CHRONOLOGICAL JARGON

Dr. Shiv Sastry

MAP OF IMPORTANT PREHISTORIC SITES

Straight line Distances from Khyber pass

Dr. Shiv Sastry

REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING:

Agrawal, D.P., The Copper Hoards Problem: A Technological Angle, 1969