A team of archaeologists has unearthed a 5,700-year-old Harappan settlement at Padta Bet in the Kutch region of Gujarat. In 2018, the excavation of a nearby archaeological site at Juna Khatiya, which had over 500 graves, was key to the discovery of the Padta Bet settlement.
When the Juna Khatiya site was excavated, the archaeologists guessed that this must have been a burial site, and set out to find any nearby settlements, where the Harappan people might have lived. They found a settlement site on a nearby hillock called Padta Bet, about a mile away from the mass burial site of Juna Khatiya.
The team has found residential structures, pots, dishes, and even semi-precious stones like carnelian and agate at the Padta Bet site. They believe that a river once flowed nearby and that the residents engaged in animal husbandry. They dated the site to 5,700 years ago, placing it in the early to late Harappan periods.
The team of archaeologists investigating this site is an international collaboration between the University of Kerala, Kachchh University, Pune’s Deccan College, and Central University of Karnataka in India; Catalan Institute of Classical Archaeology, Spanish National Research Council, and University of La Laguna in Spain; and Albion College and Texas A&M University in the United States. Read more here.
