INDIAN HISTORY THROUGH MAP- PART I

(1) Imlidih Khurd

• In Gorakhpur district on the bank of Kuwana river.
• Period 1,Pre-Narhan culture((1300 BCE)) : crude handmade redware.Remains of wattle-and-daub houses,a storage pit, ovens.
• Artifacts- terracotta, beads of agate, faience,steatite micro beads,bone points, pottery discs
• Bones of domesticated cattle,sheep goat pigs.Plant remains: rice,barley,wheat,jwar,bajra,sesame,pea,mustard,moong,grape, anwala etc.Two crop a year.
• Period2,Narhan Culture(1300-800 BCE):Intense structural activity.
• Pottery: White painted BRW similar to Narhan.
• Artifacts: Bone points,pottery discs,terracotta beads,copper arrowhead,copper beads.
• Plant remains:rice,barley,wheat,millet,pea,moong,anwala, wild plants etc.
• Bones of domesticated cattle,goat,sheep,horse,dog.Bone of wild animals like boar,hog deer,chital, barasimha.Except for molluscs,the aquatic fauna of period1 continued.

(2) Inamgaon

• Inamgaon is a post-Harappan agrarian village and archaeological site located in Pune district.Situated along the right bank of the Ghod River- a tributary of the Bhima, which in turn is a tributary of the Krishna river. 
• Multiple cultural phases including Late Jorwe Culture, Early Jorwe Culture, and Malwa Culture.
•  Chalcolithic settlement.Mud houses at Inamgaon.
• In the earlier phases (Period I and II), houses were usually rectangular and quite spacious. They were sometimes divided into two rooms by a partition. Inside the houses there were oval-shaped pits to cook food. Similar chulas were also found outside the houses. The remains of storage pits were also found. Richer farmers lived in the center of the settlement. One of the biggest houses had as many as five rooms. This may have been the house of the ruling chief. There was a granary next door. Artisans such as potters, goldsmiths, lime-makers and ivory-carvers lived on the western edge of the settlement.
• Period II (c. 1400-1000 B.C.):A fortification wall was built around the settled area.Most of the pots were red, some times with black designs on them.
• Microwear study or analysis of stone tools to find out what these tools had been used for. Some of the stone tools had been used for cutting plants, others for cutting meat, and still others for cutting fresh animal hide.Although the people of Inamgaon knew how to make artifacts out of copper, copper was scarce and therefore precious. They may have got the copper from Rajasthan or from sources closer to home. A few tools and ornaments made out of this metal have been found at the site. They include ornaments such as beads, bangles, and anklets and tools and weapons such as drills, fish hooks and arrowheads. 
• Latest part of the chalcolithic phase (in Period III), people also started making jewellery out of gold. Beads were made of different sorts of material like terracotta, semi-precious stones ivory, sea shells(Inamgaon is about 200 km away from the sea).The gold and ivory must have been come from Karnataka. People were involved in trade with people in other parts of the country.
  Discovery of plant seeds and animal bones in the excavations, gives good idea about the food ate and how they obtained it. They grew different crops such as wheat, barley, lentils, peas, gram and beans. We can tell from the cut-marks and charring on the bones that the meat of some of the animals was eaten. Some of the bones belonged to wild animals and others belonged to domesticated cattle, sheep, goats, dogs, horses and pigs.
• Scientists can make some good guesses about the kind of food people ate during their life-time by doing a chemical study of human bones. They found out that in the earlier periods (Period I and II), people's diet consisted of plant food, meat and dairy products. In the later period (Period III), their meals included more meat and fish and locally gathered plants. Some people seem to have had a better and more nutritious diet than others. There was no significant difference in the diet of males and females. Scientists also carefully studied the teeth remained found at the site. They found out that the people usually had few cavities, but that they lost their teeth rather early in life.
• Some of terracotta figurines had been baked.Some must have been toys, while others may have had a religious significance. The most frequent animal figure is the bull, and the people probably worshipped this animal. They also seem to have worshipped a female goddess. 
• In one of the burials some thing buried in a pit in the ground. There was a clay bull and a headless female figurine. Below these, there was a clay box with a female figurine in it. There was a hole in the stomach of the headless female and in the back of the bull figurine.These do not seem to have been toys but items that formed part of an important household ritual.
• In the later part of the chalcolithic phase (Period III), the people of Inamgaon seem to have faced some serious problems. Maybe there was a shortage of rainfall, or maybe there was a decrease in the fertility of the soil. So, there was a decline in farming activity. People started relying more on hunting and collecting wild plants. They also started keeping more sheep and goats instead of cattle. There were also changes in the kinds of houses they lived in. Instead of the large, rectangular houses, we find small, round huts. 
• What is microwear analysis?
  When a stone tool is used repeatedly for a certain purpose, and come into contact again and again with the same kind of material or surface, it gets a certain kind of shine or polish on its surface. The interesting thing is that the kind of 'polish' that is created by different kind of activities such as cutting plants, slicing meat, or scraping animal hides is different. By carefully studying this 'polish' on stone tools with the help of a special kind of microscope, it is possible to find out what people used a tool for.

(3) Indari

• In Mirzapur district.
• Neolithic site like Koldihwa,Pachoh,Mahagara

(4) Indore

• Indore city was a part of the Kampel pargana during the Mughal Empire. Kampel was administered by the Ujjain sarkar of Malwa Subah (province). 
• Indore traces its roots to its 16th century founding as a trading hub between the Deccan and Delhi. The city and its surroundings came under Maratha Empire on 18 May 1724 after Maratha Peshwa assumed the full control of Malwa.

(5) Indraprashta (Present New Delhi)

• Indraprastha was the capital of the kingdom led by the Pandavas in the Mahabharata epic.
• Indraprastha was a significant city in the Mauryan period, based on analysis of a stone carving found in the Delhi area at Sriniwaspuri which records the reign of the Mauryan emperor.

(6) Isipattan (In Sarnath)

• Sarnath is 13 kilometres north-east of Varanasi near the confluence of the Ganges and the Gomati rivers. 
• The deer park(Mrigdava) in Sarnath is where Gautama Buddha first taught the Dharma (Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, which was his first teaching after attaining enlightenment, in which he taught the four noble truths and the teachings associated with it.), and where the Buddhist Sangha came into existence.For Buddhists, Sarnath (or Isipatana) is one of four pilgrimage sites designated by Gautama Buddha, the other three being Kushinagar, Bodh Gaya, and Lumbini.
• Sarnath was also the birthplace the eleventh Tirthankara of Jainism, and a temple dedicated to him, is an important pilgrimage site.
• In the 7th century by the time Xuan Zang visited from China, he found 30 monasteries and 3000 monks living at Sarnath,studying the Hīnayāna.He mentions stupa built by Ashoka.
• The Divy. (389-94) mentions Asoka as intimating to Upagupta his desire to visit the places connected with the Buddha's activities, and to erect thupas there. Thus he visited Lumbinī, Bodhimūla, Isipatana, Migadāya and Kusinagara; this is confirmed by Asoka's lithic records, e.g. Rock Edict, viii. A stone pillar to mark the spot where the Buddha preached his first sermon. 
• Buddhism flourished in Sarnath in part because of kings and wealthy merchants based in Varanasi. By the third century Sarnath had become an important center for the arts, which reached its zenith during the Gupta period (4th to 6th centuries CE). 
• Sarnath became a major centre of the Sammatiya school of Buddhism, one of the early Buddhist schools. However, the presence of images of Heruka and Tara indicate that Vajrayana Buddhism was (at a later time) . Also images of Brahminist gods as Shiva and Brahma were found at the site, and there is still a Jain temple (at Chandrapuri) located very close to the Dhamekh Stupa.

Most of the ancient buildings and structures at Sarnath were damaged or destroyed by the Turks. However, amongst the ruins can be distinguished:

The Dhamek Stupa: 

• The Dhamek Stupa was built in 500 CE to replace an earlier structure commissioned by the great Mauryan king Ashoka in 249 BCE to commemorate the Buddha's activities in this location. Stupas originated as circular mounds encircled by large stones. King Ashoka built stupas to enshrine small pieces of calcinated bone and other relics of the Buddha and his disciples.An Ashoka pillar with an edict engraved on it stands near the site. It is the most massive structure in Sarnath.
• The stupa was enlarged on six occasions.
  The stupa is a solid cylinder of bricks and stone.The stone facing is chiseled and displays delicate floral carvings of Gupta origin. The wall is covered with exquisitely carved figures of humans and birds, as well as inscriptions in the Brāhmī script.

  

  Dhamek Stupa

The Chaukhandi Stupa 

• It commemorates the spot where the Buddha met his first disciples and later enhanced by the addition of an octagonal tower of Islamic origin.

  

  Chaukhandi Stupa

The Ashoka Pillar(Column):

• Originally surmounted by the "Lion Capital of Asoka". A graphic representation of it was adopted as the official Emblem of India in 1950.
• It was originally placed atop the Aśoka pillar at the important Buddhist site of Sarnath by the Emperor Ashoka, in about 250 BCE.It is more elaborate than the other very similar surviving capitals of the pillars of Ashoka bearing the Edicts of Ashoka that were placed throughout India (including modern Nepal, Pakistan and Afghanistan) several of which feature single animals at the top; one other damaged group of four lions survives, at Sanchi. 
• The capital is carved out of a single block of polished sandstone, and was always a separate piece from the column itself. It features four Asiatic Lions standing back to back. They are mounted on an abacus with a frieze carrying sculptures in high relief of an elephant, a galloping horse, a bull, and a lion, separated by intervening spoked chariot-wheels. The whole sits upon a bell-shaped lotus.The wheel on the capital, below the lions, is the model for the one in the flag of India. 
• The six surviving animal sculptures from Ashoka pillars form "the first important group of Indian stone sculpture". There has been much discussion of the extent of influence from Achaemenid Persia, where the column capitals supporting the roofs at Persepolis have similarities.Very similar four-lion sculptures are on the capitals of the two columns supporting the south torana of the Ashokan or Satavahana enclosure wall round the Great Stupa at Sanchi.

(7) Itanagar

• Historical fort called Ita-fort which dates back to the 15th century (after which the city is named),legendary Ganga Lake or Gyakar Sinyi and the new Buddhist temple known as Buddha Vihar consecrated by the Dalai Lama.