ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at cities in India from an archaeological perspective, taking their material aspects as a focal point. Drawing on the work of Gordon Childe and other archaeologists, in the first section a set of criteria is outlined by which a settlement may be defined as a city; these include the extensiveness of the site, its clear physical demarcation from the surrounding area, the existence of monumental architecture for a public purpose and evidence of the existence of specialised craft industries, etc. The chapter goes on to discuss several sites in light of these criteria, beginning with cities in proto-historic India in the first period of urbanisation and moving on to examine settlements in the second period of urbanisation – over 1,000 years later – in early historic north India and in southern India, where the second period of urbanisation occurred later still. The closing section of this chapter comments briefly on the possibility of a connected cultural development process in India using the evidence provided by black and red ware, a type of pottery. What in archaeological terms constitutes a city? Archaeology is the study of human cultures based on material evidence, and thus when cities are viewed from an archaeological perspective their material aspects form the main focal point. Gordon Childe, one of the world’s most influential archaeologists, listed ten criteria for a settlement to qualify as a city, and these are still referred to today as a classic example of the ‘definition’ of a city (Childe 1950). As a result of the stress he placed on the ideological aspects of urbanisation, Childe’s criteria are somewhat complex and may appear to be a mixed bag of multifaceted features. Childe coined the term ‘Urban Revolution’ and claimed that it was the second critical and revolutionary turning point in the history of mankind, after the ‘Neolithic Revolution’. He remains highly influential, and many other archaeologists, including Shaffer (1993) and Allchin (1995), have formulated their idea of the city based on Childe’s criteria. In this chapter the criteria put forward by Childe and other archaeologists are elaborated upon and summarised into several materially discernible elements to be used as benchmarks in distinguishing between a city and a village in the examination of archaeological sites. Before beginning the main body of this chapter, an important point must be made regarding the significance of focusing on material evidence alone. With
the rise of religious fundamentalism, studies of Indian history have often been exploited in order to justify particular political or religious ideologies, such as the idea of indigenous Aryans, alleged medieval Islamic vandalism, claims of a possible link between Dravidian people and Indus valley civilisation and many others. In this context, in order to circumvent this kind of controversy, it is strategically important to confine the analysis of Indian cities that will occur here to material culture. The following are the proposed observable elements for the identification of a settlement as a city from the viewpoint of material culture:
1 The extensiveness of the site and/or estimated high population density, which reflects the overwhelming size of the settlement compared with other sites.
