User:Echoarchaeo/sandbox

The excavations of Rundhi Mora in Dhatva, a small village located on the southern banks of Tapi, occurred in 1968 led by R.N. Mehta and his team. The excavations were made possible by the cooperation of owner of the land who allowed the excavation of his fields. The low, flat, and barely visible mound Rundhi Mora, which would normally be considered an insignificant topographical feature, has a radius of about 150 meters and a height of roughly 2/3 meters. The mound lies south of Dhatva on the Netrang-Dighas country road. Initial surface explorations yielded large quantities of iron slag, Black and Red Ware, and sherds of chalcolithic pottery. Excavations of this site revealed two occupation periods: the Chacolithic period and the Historic period. Because of the ambiguous transition of the Chacolithic period into the Early Iron Age, the excavations of this site initially aimed to shed light on this conversion. However, the findings suggested the site had been abandoned after the Chalcolithic occupation and later reoccupied during the Historic period and could not provide sufficient information on this because the site was not continuously occupied during the transition of these eras. The Chalcolithic occupation of this site ranged from the 15th century B.C. to the 10th century B.C. and the Early Historical occupation existed roughly from 5th-4th century B.C to the 3rd-4th centuries A.D.       The pottery unearthed at the Chalcolithic levels were an assortment of Harappan, Malwa, and Black and Red ware. This variety of pottery styles indicates that this area was either inhabited by people of different ceramic traditions or was occupied during a time when traditions intermingled and coexisted. After the subsequent abandonment of the site, excavations reveal that the site was once again occupied, this time by iron-smelters who used local ore. Analysis of the slag indicated that the artifacts were produced locally. The settlement imported Roman materials such as Roman amphorae. According to Ambika Patel (1999: 23), “the Early Historic material culture of this region is characterized by the presence of northern black polished ware, dominance of black‐and‐red ware, slow introduction and later dominance of red polished ware, occurrence of Roman amphorae, Rangmahal ware, introduction of glass and lead, followed by gradual conquest of iron, an agro‐based economy, shell industry, development of script, rise of urban settlements, brick structural remains, monumental buildings, international trade and development of Jainism, Buddhism and Vaishnavism.” Other notable procurements of the site include the vast amount of fauna remains unearthed here. At the time of excavation, the site was threatened by brick manufacture.