Glimpses Of Ancient Kashmir......

Continuing with my previous blog on Kashmir history, here I will provide brief snippet of early inhabitant of Kashmir since it is not possible to give exhaustive treatment here, I will opt for brief history although it took me nearly two weeks of research to arrive at this topic and I am still working on it:). Nilamata Purana, which is considered to be the oldest source of Ancient history of kashmir and according to which the aboriginal inhabitants of kashmir were Nagas , they were serpent worshipper, according to legend, kashmir was huge lake and Anata drained the water out by plough and the name Anatanag is named after him.Springs or Nag, River and Lakes in kashmir are of religious and cultural importance . Indo Aryan came to valley when the river saraswati in Punjab dried up although they faced tough opposion from nagas, Aryan seeked permission from Nila,the king of nagas, to settle in Kashmir and they adopted the religious and cultural practices of nagas.
In 1960, Archaeological department of India made excavation at Burzahom site, srinagar, it revealed inhabitant of Kashmir were pit dwellers, they used to live on karewas (dried piece of lake) in pits , they used to dig the pits using various polished stone tools, living in pits protected neolithic people from harsh cold winter of Kashmir.In pits, pieces of ash, charcoal and pieces of pottery were found, some of the pits were embedded with ovens on which people cooked their food. The excavation also lead to the discovery of some valuable bone and stone tools in form of harpoons,axes, arrowhead and stone paintings with hunting scene carved on it.After excavations at burzahom, many other sites such as Begagund, Gofkral, Hariparigom, Olchibag, Pampur, Panzgom, Sombur Waztal, and Brah were excavated and they provided similar clue regarding tools and house used in Neolithic times.But excavation at Burzahom will remain special.



To be Continued........