Place · early historic settlement · India
Atranjikhera
The archaeological site at Atranjikhera in Etah district, Uttar Pradesh — a 150-hectare early historic settlement excavated by R.C. Gaur of Aligarh Muslim University from 1962-1968 that provided the key stratigraphic sequence linking the Painted Grey Ware (c.1200-800 BCE), Northern Black Polished Ware (c.700-200 BCE) and early historic layers in the upper Gangetic plain. The site's PGW layers yielded the earliest iron artifacts (c.1200-1000 BCE) securely dated in the Gangetic plain, central to arguments about the iron-and-Vedic transition. The settlement sequence from PGW through to the Kushan-period documents the second urbanisation's progressive growth. Atranjikhera's chronology remains a reference point for upper-Gangetic archaeology.
- Function
- Authority & administration
- Tradition
- South Asian archaeology
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 27.260, 79.320
Connections (2)
- Succession in timeRupnagar (Ropar)
Rupnagar has Harappan levels directly under Painted Grey Ware; Atranjikhera in the upper Ganges plain has the fullest Painted Grey Ware and iron sequence anywhere. Together they are the bridge between the first urbanisation and the second, which is otherwise a gap of seven hundred years with very little in it.
- In the same set asAhichhatra
Atranjikhera has the type sequence — Ochre Coloured Pottery, Black and Red Ware, Painted Grey Ware, Northern Black Polished Ware, and the region's earliest iron — and Ahichhatra has the same pottery under a named epic capital with a five-kilometre rampart. Between them they turn a ceramic sequence into a political geography, which is how the second urbanisation is dated at all.
On these journeys
Sources
Archaeological Survey of India and State Archaeology monument records, and the standard regional literature.
Open Atranjikhera in the repository →