The present book meets a long-felt need of a book dealing exclusively with the Chronology of the Prehistoric Cultures of India. The book uses not only the traditional archaeological methods of dating but also the various modern techniques like Radiocarbon-dating, Thermoluminescence-dating etc. To evolve scientific chronologies it is essential to understand the various dating techniques and their limitations. A brief discussion of the relevant techniques, that are based on various natural sciences, has therefore been included in the book. The book deals exhaustively with the Chronologies of the Stone Age Cultures, as also the Chalcolithic and the early Iron Age cultures of Protohistoric India. But the Chronology has been discussed against the archaeological backdrop which makes the book much more meaningful and interesting. Though a technical subject, technical jargon has been minimised. The subject has been treated in a simple and lucid style to interest the scholar and the layman alike.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR D P Agarwal
In the course of his long academic career, Prof. D.P. Agrawal has worked with the Archaeological Survey of India, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bombay and Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), Ahmedabad. His research contributions have been varied and multi-disciplinary –mainly in the fields of archaeology, radiocarbon & TL dating, archaeometallurgy, and palaeoenvironment. Prof. Agrawal has done extensive work on archaeometallurgy of the Harappa Culture, the Copper Hoards Culture, and also in the Central Himalayan region. Prof. Agrawal has specialized in the use of scientific techniques for archaeological research. He has also made fundamental theoretical contributions in the fields of language and evolution, flaking mechanics, archaeological theories and concepts of time. He retired as a senior professor and chairman of a large multidisciplinary group at Physical Research Laboratory. He has organized and attended numerous national and international symposia. He has given invited talks at the leading centers of archaeological and palaeoenvironmental research both in India and abroad. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania and International Research Centre at Kyoto for a year each. He has published 14 books and about 250 papers. He is a member of the advisory boards of World Archaeology, Le’Anthropologie and has edited Man & Environment for a number of years. He has been the Chairman of Indian Society for Prehistoric and Quaternary Research, member of the Central Advisory Board of Archaeology, and has been associated with several other academic committees – both national and international. He is a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Science.
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