Excavation at Vadnagar

January 16, 2024

A consortium of scientists from IIT Kharagpur, Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), and Deccan College has found evidence of cultural continuity in Vadnagar even after the Harappan collapse.
- Vadnagar is the Prime Minister’s native village.
The team has found evidence of a human settlement that is as old as 800 BCE contemporary to late-Vedic/pre-Buddhist Mahajanapadas or oligarchic republics.
Vadnagar was a multicultural and multireligious (Buddhist, Hindu, Jain and Islamic) settlement.
Excavation in several deep trenches revealed the presence of seven cultural stages (periods) namely, Mauryan, Indo-Greek, Indo-Scythian or Shaka-Kshatrapas (AKA ‘Satraps’, descendants of provincial governors of ancient Achaemenid Empires, Hindu-Solankis, Sultanate-Mughal (Islamic) to Gaekwad-British colonial rule.
Characteristic archaeological artefacts, potteries, copper, gold, silver and iron objects and intricately designed bangles have been found.
Coin moulds of the Greek king Appollodatus during the Indo-Greek rule have also been found at Vadnagar.