The emergence of Non-Harappan Chalcolithic cultures in Central India and the Deccan mark a change not only in the subsistence pattern of people but also in their social organization. Comment.

Answer:

The Chalcolithic cultures of central India and the Deccan, flourishing roughly between 2000 and 700 BCE, represent the first settled farming communities of the region. Their appearance transformed both how people obtained food and how their societies were ordered.

The cultures and their sites

• Kayatha, Ahar-Banas, Malwa and Jorwe are the principal regional cultures.
• Key sites include Ahar, Gilund, Navdatoli, Inamgaon, Daimabad, Chandoli and Nevasa.
• They used copper alongside a continuing stone-blade industry.
• Distinctive painted black-on-red wares characterise each culture.

Change in the subsistence pattern

• Settled cultivation replaced hunting, gathering and simple pastoralism.
• Wheat, barley, jowar, bajra, rice, lentils and several pulses were grown.
• Cattle, sheep, goat and pig were domesticated, with cattle central to the economy.
• Hunting and fishing continued as supplementary activities.
• Ploughing, storage in large jars and irrigation channels appear at Inamgaon.

Change in social organisation

• Village settlements of rectangular and circular houses show permanent occupation.
• Inamgaon reveals planned layout with separate residential and craft areas.
• Differences in house size, grave goods and burial practice indicate emerging inequality.
• A five-roomed house with a granary at Inamgaon suggests a chief's residence.
• Craft specialisation appears in potters, coppersmiths, bead-makers and lime-makers.
• Mother-goddess figurines and headless burials point to organised ritual life.

Assessment and limitations

• These were pre-urban, non-literate village societies without cities or writing.
• Many Jorwe settlements were abandoned around 1000 BCE, probably owing to aridity.
• H.D. Sankalia's excavations at Inamgaon and Nevasa established this cultural sequence.
• High infant mortality at Inamgaon suggests a precarious subsistence base.

Relationship with other cultures

• Some, such as Ahar, were broadly contemporary with the mature Harappan phase.
• Certain Jorwe sites, notably Daimabad, show possible late Harappan contact.
• They were technologically simpler, lacking writing, planned cities and burnt brick.
• They nonetheless prepared the agrarian base for later urbanisation in the Deccan.

The comment is therefore justified. As H.D. Sankalia's work demonstrated, these Chalcolithic communities did not merely adopt farming: settled agriculture produced surplus, craft specialisation and social differentiation, so the change in subsistence brought with it a lasting transformation of social organisation.