Archaeobotanical Evidence from Wari-Bateshwar for the Emergence of Agriculture in the Bengal Frontier Zone

Mizanur Rahman

This research elucidates recent archaeological findings from the site of Wari-Bateshwar in Bangladesh, which reveal the initial phases of agriculture in an aceramic context. Despite its strategic location at the juncture of South Asia, Southeast Asia and China, the Neolithic habitation of Bangladesh and its neighbouring regions in Northeast India and West Bengal has remained relatively understudied. The discovery of prehistoric tools such as axes, shouldered axes, and celts across the Pleistocene uplands and Tertiary hilly landscapes underscores the likelihood of longstanding Neolithic settlements and supports a rich historical inquiry into this region. Recent excavations at Wari-Bateshwar have uncovered successive stratigraphic layers that provide the earliest evidence of directly dated rice agriculture within the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM) delta in the lower Brahmaputra valley. These findings suggest an onset of the Neolithic Period in this region by the early 1st Millennium BC, which is relatively contemporary with adjoining Eastern India (ca.1200-1500 BC) in the west and Burma and Yunnan (700-1000 BC) in the east, and can be considered as Late Neolithic. In contrast, the date is comparatively late, with adjoining regions of the Middle Ganges and Thailand (ca. 2000 BC) and South China (ca.7000 BC) far-reaching. Furthermore, the emergence of aus rice along with the introduction of japonica and indica rice varieties, identified through morphometric analysis of rice grains, has implications for understanding the development of agrarian societies, supporting later urban growth, and sustaining increasing populations in this deltaic region.