Consider the following statements about the Jorwe culture of the Deccan : 1. It covers, practically, the whole of modern Maharashtra except the coastal Konkan district. 2. The Pravara-Godavari valleys seem to have been the nuclear zone. 3. The large sites of this culture yield evidence of shifting agriculture. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
- (a)1 only
- (b)1 and 2 only
- (c)2 and 3 only
- (d)1, 2 and 3
Correct — B, 1 and 2 only. Statements 1 and 2 describe the Jorwe culture accurately; statement 3 is the one that fails. Jorwe sites are spread across the Deccan plateau of what is now Maharashtra and even reach north into Malwa in Madhya Pradesh, but they keep off the wet coastal strip — the Konkan and coastal Gujarat show up in the Jorwe record as trading partners supplying fish, conch shell and haematite, not as Jorwe territory. The culture's core is the Pravara–Godavari country of the northern Deccan: the type site Jorwe, along with Nevasa and Daimabad, all lie in the Pravara valley of Ahmednagar district, the Pravara being a tributary of the Godavari. What the large sites do not show is shifting agriculture. Daimabad grew to roughly 30 hectares in its Jorwe phase, with traces of a mud fortification wall and bastions, and Jorwe villages yield wheat, barley, legumes and several millets together with granaries for storing grain — the signature of settled fields sown season after season, not of a plot cleared, cropped once or twice and abandoned.
- (a)1 only — Drops statement 2, which is sound — the Pravara–Godavari valleys are exactly where the culture's excavated type sites cluster, and the culture takes its name from Jorwe on the Pravara.
- (c)2 and 3 only — Throws out the true statement 1 and keeps the false one. The extent claim is correct; the shifting-agriculture claim is not.
- (d)1, 2 and 3 — The tempting all-of-them pick. It fails only on statement 3 — the big Jorwe sites are fortified, granary-holding farming villages, which is evidence against shifting cultivation, not for it.
The Jorwe culture is the best-known Chalcolithic (copper-and-stone-using) farming culture of the Deccan, running in an early phase of about 1400–1000 BCE and a late phase of about 1000–700 BCE. Its people lived in villages of mud-walled houses, made a distinctive painted red-slipped pottery, used copper alongside a blade industry in stone, and grew wheat, barley, legumes and millets. Jorwe, Nevasa, Daimabad and Inamgaon are the sites the textbooks return to.
The item is built so that two easy statements carry a hard third. Extent and core zone are things you either remember or can rebuild from the site names — Jorwe and Nevasa are on the Pravara, Daimabad on the Pravara, so the Pravara–Godavari nucleus follows. Statement 3 is where the marks are, and the trap is a general feeling that an early farming culture must have shifted its fields. Archaeologically, shifting cultivation is inferred from thin, briefly occupied deposits; the large Jorwe sites are the opposite — deep occupation, a mud fortification at Daimabad, storage jars and granaries. One printed oddity worth noting: the paper says 'the coastal Konkan district', though the Konkan is a coastal region of several districts, not one district. That slip does not change what is being tested.
- The Jorwe culture has an early phase of about 1400–1000 BCE and a late phase of about 1000–700 BCE.
- Its sites cover large parts of the Deccan in modern Maharashtra and reach north into the Malwa region of Madhya Pradesh.
- Daimabad, on the left bank of the Pravara — a tributary of the Godavari — in Ahmednagar district, is the largest Jorwe settlement, about 30 hectares, with traces of a mud fortification wall and bastions.
- The crop base was wheat, barley and legumes with new kinds of millet added, and grain was held in granaries — stored surplus, which shifting cultivators do not build for.
- Coastal Gujarat and the Konkan appear in the Jorwe record as sources of fish, conch shell and haematite obtained through trade.
- Assuming any early farming culture must have practised shifting cultivation — at Jorwe the large sites argue the opposite.
- Counting the Konkan as Jorwe territory because Jorwe villages obtained shell and fish from the coast.
- Confusing the Jorwe levels at Daimabad with the Late Harappan levels that lie beneath them at the same mound.
Usually as a statements item on the extent, core zone and economy of the Jorwe culture, or as a site-to-description match involving Inamgaon or Daimabad.
Consider the following information: Archaeological Site — State — Description. 1. Chandraketugarh — Odisha — Trading Port town. 2. Inamgaon — Maharashtra — Chalcolithic site. 3. Mangadu — Kerala — Megalithic site. 4. Salihundam — Andhra Pradesh — Rock-cut cave shrines. In which of the above rows is the given information correctly matched?
- (a) 1 and 2
- (b) 2 and 3
- (c) 3 and 4
- (d) 1 and 4
Answer(b) 2 and 3
Same body of evidence — the Chalcolithic farming villages of Maharashtra. That UPSC item turns on recognising Inamgaon as a Chalcolithic site; Inamgaon is one of the two most fully excavated Jorwe settlements, alongside Daimabad.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Daimabad, the largest excavated settlement of the Jorwe culture, lies on the bank of which one of the following rivers?
- (a)Bhima
- (b)Pravara
- (c)Tapi
- (d)Wainganga
Answer(b) Pravara — Daimabad stands on the left bank of the Pravara, a tributary of the Godavari, in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The Jorwe culture of the Deccan belongs to which one of the following archaeological periods?
- (a)Lower Palaeolithic
- (b)Mesolithic
- (c)Chalcolithic
- (d)Early Iron Age
Answer(c) Chalcolithic — Jorwe is a copper-and-stone-using farming culture of the Deccan, dated to about 1400–700 BCE.