Back بیرانا (هیندوستان) AZB ভিড়দানা Bengali/Bangla Bhirrana Finnish भिरड़ाना Hindi Bhirrana Malay ਭਿਰੜਾਣਾ Punjabi Bhirrana Polish Birrana Portuguese Bhirdana SIMPLE பீர்த்தனா Tamil
 Remains of the site in 2020 | |
  Shown within Haryana  Bhirrana (India) | |
| Location | Haryana, India |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 29°33′15″N 75°32′55″E / 29.55417°N 75.54861°E |
| Type | Settlement |
| Length | 190 m (620 ft) |
| Width | 240 m (790 ft) |
| History | |
| Founded | c. 7560 BCE[1][2][3][4] |
| Abandoned | c. 2500 BCE[1][2][3][4] |
| Periods | Hakra Wares to Mature Harappan |
| Cultures | Hakra Ware culture, Indus Valley civilization |
| Site notes | |
| Excavation dates | 2003–2006 |
Bhirrana, also Bhirdana and Birhana, (IAST: Bhirḍāna) is an archaeological site, located in a small village in the Fatehabad district of the north Indian state of Haryana.[web 1][5][web 2] Bhirrana's earliest archaeological layers contained two charcoal samples dating to the 8th-7th millennium BCE, predating the Indus Valley civilisation,[2][1][6][3][4][web 2] but occurring in the same levels with Hakra Ware pottery which had been dated to the 4th millennium BCE in other sites of the region,[7][a] as well as "about half a dozen" other charcoal samples from the early levels of Bhirrana dated 3200-2600 BCE.[8] The site is one of the many sites seen along the channels of the seasonal Ghaggar river,[9][4] identified by ASI archeologists to be the Post-IVC, Rigvedic Saraswati river of c. 1500 BCE.[web 2][4]
Scholarly interpretation and dating of Bhirrana, as with a number of other archaeological sites of ancient India, has been subject to contestation regarding the methodologies and ideology of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI): many senior officials of the ASI have been "embroiled in controversies" over pseudo-"scientific" efforts to legitimate the Hindutva ideology which identifies the ancient Harappans (incorrectly) with the Vedas and Sanskrit, in order to synthesize the nationalist narrative of Indian civilization as indigenous and continuous since its beginning, allegedly originating from the banks of the Saraswati River (rather than the Indus).[10] A superintending archaeologist of the Bhirrana excavations was quoted as promoting the association of Harappans with the Vedas and the Saraswati river,[8] and questions are being raised about the scientific quality of the excavations.[11] Archaeologist Gregory Possehl—a leading expert of the Indus Valley civilization—expressed reservations "about temporal assertions made on the basis of radiocarbon dates" from Bhirrana.[12]
- ^ a b c Law 2008, p. 83.
- ^ a b c Rao 2005.
- ^ a b c Dikshit 2013.
- ^ a b c d e Sarkar 2016.
- ^ Kunal, Bhirdana and Banawali in Fatehabad
- ^ Dikshit 2012.
- ^ Uesugi 2011, pp. 366–367.
- ^ a b Avikunthak 2022, p. 34.
- ^ Singh 2017.
- ^ Avikunthak 2022, pp. 34, 51–56.
- ^ Varma & Menon 2010, note 14: "The prestige of an archaeologist was not assessed on the basis of his/her analytical or theoretical contribution to Indian archaeology but on the number of sites discovered and the temporal antiquity of the site. It was understood that the older the site, the more prestigious it was to discover and dig it. [...] specialists are in short supply in the ASI… to tell you the truth, they don’t encourage specialisation in the ASI… there were no archaeozoologists, archaeobotanists, archaeometallurgists nor were there any lithic or ceramic specialists [at Bhirrana]. [...] all senior archaeologists in the ASI have right wing sympathies"
- ^ Avikunthak 2022, p. 62: quoting Possehl, "There are inherent problems in the archaeological record in terms of an archaeologist’s control over the precise relationship between charcoal samples used for dating and their association with the history we are attempting to date"
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