Transformations in Early Historic and Early Medieval India- Excavations at Paithan, Maharashtra (1996-1999) (Memoirs of the Archaeological Survey of India)

Contents: Part I: Background to the Project. 1. Introduction/Derek Kennet. 2. Historical context/Shailendra Bhandare. 3. Previous archaeological work at Paithan/Derek Kennet. Part II: The Excavations. 4. The brick temples in Trench A/Derek Kennet. 5. The excavation of Trenches B, C, D, E and F/J. Varaprasada Rao and Derek Kennet. 6. Periodisation and dating of the sequence/Derek Kennet. Part III: The Finds. 7. The pottery/Derek Kennet. 8. The small finds and glass/M. Kasturi Bai. 9. The coins/M. Kasturi Bai and Shailendra Bhandare with an appendix by D. Kennet. 10. Report on the finds from the 1996 and 1997 seasons of excavation/M. Kasturi Bai. 11. Objects displayed in Balasaheb Patil Government Museum, Paithan/M. Kasturi Bai. Part IV: Environmental Evidences. 12. Archaeobotany/Dorian Q. Fuller. 13. The faunal remains/Peter Rowley-Conwy, with a contribution by P K. Thomas. Part V: Conclusions. 14. Conclusion/Derek Kennet. References. Appendix.
 
The Early Historic to Early Medieval transition is a key formative period in India's history. This is particularly true in terms of the emerging economic and political role of temples, the nature of urbanism, the role of Brahmins and the emergence of Hindu kingship, but also in relation to broader debates about transformations in economy and society. In recent years the study of this transitional period has itself undergone significant transformation amongst historians (e.g. Chattopadhyaya 1994; Kulke 1995b; Bakker 1997; Willis 2009; Bronkhorst 2011). At the same time it has been notable that-aside from the debate about late Early Historic urban decline (Sharma 1987)-the archaeological contribution to our understanding of the transition has been relatively thin. It was a keen awareness of this point, as well as a clear vision of the potential that archaeological evidence has to address many of the key issues that surround the transition, that drove the two directors of the present project (J. V. P. Rao and D. Kennet) to steer the Paithan excavation project in this direction when they jointly took it over in 1998. However, before going into the details of the research aims and objectives that formed the underlying rationale of the present excavations, it may be useful to provide a short background to the study of the Early Historic/Early Medieval transition in order to set out the research context.