Place · neolithic site · India
Burzahom
The Neolithic site at Burzahom in Srinagar district, Kashmir, excavated by T.N. Khazanchi 1960-72. The site preserves pit dwellings dug into loess from c.3000-1500 BCE, in which the inhabitants lived six to seven feet below ground level with ladder access from the surface — a distinctive Kashmiri adaptation to winter cold. A menhir alignment and a carved stone slab in the mature phase show figures that have been variously read as a hunting scene with hunters, dogs and a stag, or as an astronomical representation with a supernova in Taurus c.4500 BCE. The latter interpretation would make it the earliest supernova record from the subcontinent.
- Function
- Archaeology & heritage
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 34.170, 74.920
Connections (4)
- AnalogueGanweriwala
Burzahom's pit dwellings, bone tools and dog burials point north and east — to Central Asia and the Chinese neolithic — rather than to the Indus or the peninsula, and the Kashmir valley is the one part of the subcontinent whose prehistory belongs to a different world. Ganweriwala and the Harappan sites are four hundred kilometres away across the Pir Panjal and have almost nothing in common with it.
- AnalogueLadakh petroglyphs
Burzahom's pit dwellings, bone tools and dog burials have their nearest parallels in Central Asia and northern China rather than in the Indian plains, and the Ladakh petroglyph fields lie along the upper Indus route in the same direction. The Himalayan prehistoric record consistently points over the passes, which is a useful corrective to reading the mountains as a wall.
- AnalogueThe Gandhara grave culture
The two northern protohistoric horizons, in Swat and in Kashmir, and both were read as migrations before they were read as sites. Burzahom on the Kashmir Karewa has pit dwellings, polished stone tools, bone points and dog and human burials from about 3000 BCE; the Swat graves have stone-lined cists with grey ware and horse gear from about 1700. Each was offered at some point as the archaeological signature of incoming Indo-Aryan speakers, and in both cases the material sequence has outlasted the identification.
- Site withinSrinagar
Burzahom lies within Srinagar — the two sites sit about 15 km apart, well inside the city's historical boundary and part of the same urban or peri-urban landscape. Burzahom is one of the specific sites that give Srinagar its layered character, and reads differently when seen as a stop within the larger city rather than as an isolated monument on an open map. The surrounding neighbourhoods, roads and other heritage ensembles belong to the same single urban fabric.
On these journeys
- Prehistoric rock art
- UNESCO Tentative List
- Megaliths & menhirs
- Pre-Harappan, Chalcolithic & early historic horizons
Sources
Burzahom excavation reports, ASI
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