The Ochre Coloured Pottery culture (OCP), is a 2nd millennium BC Bronze Age culture (1500 BC - 1000 BC) of the Ganga-Yamuna plain. It is a contemporary to, and a successor of the Indus Valley Civilization. The OCP marks the last stage of the North Indian Bronze Age and is succeeded by the Iron Age black-and-red ware and painted-gray ware cultures. Early specimens of the characteristic ceramics found near Jodhpura, Rajasthan date to the 3rd millennium,this site of Jodhpura is in district Jaipur and must not be confused with the city of Jodhpur, and the culture reaches the Gangetic plain in the early 2nd millennium.

Copper Hoards refer to different assemblages of copper-based artefacts in the northern areas of the Indian Subcontinent. These are believed to date largely to the 2nd millennium BC. Few derive from controlled excavations. Different regional groups are identifiable: southern Haryana/northern Rajasthan, the Ganges-Jumuna plain, Chota Nagpur and in Madhya Pradesh, each with their characteristic artefact types. Initially the copper hoards were known mostly from the Ganges-Jumuna doab and most characterisations dwell on this material.

Characteristic hoard artefacts southern Haryana/northern Rajasthan and include certain, flat axes (celts), harpoons double axes, antenna-hilted swords etc. The doab has a related repertory. That of the Chota Nagpur area is far different and the finds seem to be ingots.

The artefacts seem to be votive in character.

The raw material can have derived from a variety of sources in Rajasthan (Khetri), Bihar/West Bengal/Orissa (especially Singhbhum) as well as Madhya Pradesh (Malanjkhand). Some scholars regard the OCP culture as late or impoverished Harappan culture, while other scholars see the OCP as an indigenous culture that is unrelated to Harappan culture. V.N. Misra (in S.P. Gupta 1995: 140) regards the OCP as "only a final and impoverished stage of the Late Harappan culture" and designates this phase as "Degenarate Harappan".

Together with the Cemetery H culture and the Gandhara Grave culture, the OCP is considered by some scholars a factor in the formation of the Vedic civilization.

References

• Yule, P. 1985. Metalwork of the Bronze age in India. C.H. Beck, Munich ISBN 3 406 30440 0
• Yule, P./Hauptmann, A./Hughes, M. 1989 ^*. The Copper Hoards of the Indian Subcontinent: Preliminaries for an Interpretation, Jahrbuch des Römisch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums Mainz 36, 193-275, ISSN 0076-2741
• Gupta, S.P. (ed.). 1995. The lost Sarasvati and the Indus Civilization. Kusumanjali Prakashan, Jodhpur.

External links

• http://pubweb.cc.u-tokai.ac.jp/indus/english/3_1_06.html

Bronze Age | Archaeological cultures | Indus Valley Civilization | History of Pakistan | History of Rajasthan