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A Neolithic archaeological site in Assam's Dima Hasao district, the first stratified Neolithic site excavated in Northeast India.
Daojali Hading is a Neolithic archaeological site located in the Dima Hasao district of Assam, within the Langting-Mupa Reserve Forest. Excavated in the early 1960s, it was the first stratified Neolithic site discovered in Northeast India, meaning the first at which finds could be assigned to distinct occupation layers rather than merely collected from the surface. Its assemblage of shouldered celts and cord-marked pottery links the Neolithic culture of the Northeast to East and Southeast Asia rather than to the Neolithic cultures of the Indian mainland, which is what gives the site its importance.
Type: PhenomenonLocated in Dima Hasao district, Assam, in the Langting-Mupa Reserve Forest
The first stratified Neolithic site excavated in Northeast India
Excavated in 1961-63 by a team led by M.C. Goswami and T.C. Sharma
Characteristic finds include polished double-shouldered celts and cord-marked pottery
Other finds include mortars and pestles and jadeite stone
Evidence of a furnace and iron slag indicates metallurgical activity at the site
Recent survey work has dated Neolithic habitation here to over 2,700 years ago
Frequency: Neolithic sites of India appear regularly in UPSC Prelims ancient history, usually as location or characteristic-artefact questions
Before Daojali Hading, knowledge of the Northeast Indian Neolithic rested largely on stray surface finds of polished stone tools, which could not be dated or placed in sequence. The excavation of 1961-63 changed that by recovering artefacts from defined stratigraphic layers, giving the region its first securely contextualised Neolithic assemblage. Subsequent work has both refined the dating, placing habitation at more than 2,700 years ago, and complicated the picture, with a furnace and iron slag suggesting that metallurgy was practised at the site. That combination of Neolithic stone technology with evidence of metalworking is characteristic of the Northeast, where the transitions seen elsewhere in India did not follow the same sequence or timing.
Excavation by a team led by M.C. Goswami and T.C. Sharma establishes the first stratified Neolithic sequence in Northeast India
Radiometric work dates Neolithic habitation at the site to over 2,700 years ago; a furnace and iron slag indicate metallurgical activity
A celt is a polished stone axe or adze head, the defining tool of Neolithic cultures. A shouldered celt has a narrowed, projecting butt that lets it be hafted more securely into a wooden handle, and this particular form is distinctive of Southeast Asia and southern China rather than of the Indian mainland. Cord-marked pottery is made by pressing a cord-wrapped paddle against the wet clay surface, leaving a woven impression; it too is a hallmark of East and Southeast Asian Neolithic traditions. Finding both together at Daojali Hading is what allows archaeologists to argue that the Northeast Indian Neolithic belonged to an eastern cultural sphere.
The artefacts work like a regional accent in speech: their style tells you which cultural world the makers belonged to, even without a written record.
Daojali Hading anchors the argument that Northeast India was a corridor of cultural exchange with Southeast Asia rather than a remote extension of mainland Indian prehistory. That reframing matters for how the region's history is written: the Neolithic of the Northeast has affinities with the Hoabinhian tradition of Southeast Asia, and the presence of jadeite, a stone associated with Myanmar and further east, suggests exchange networks running along the same corridors that later carried migration and trade. For students, the site is the standard example used to make this point.
Daojali Hading: Neolithic site in Dima Hasao district, Assam
First stratified Neolithic site excavated in Northeast India
Excavated 1961-63 by M.C. Goswami and T.C. Sharma
Key finds: double-shouldered celts, cord-marked pottery, mortars and pestles, jadeite
Furnace and iron slag indicate metallurgical activity
Cultural affinities point east, towards Southeast Asia and the Hoabinhian tradition
It lies in the Dima Hasao district of Assam, within the Langting-Mupa Reserve Forest, in the hills of southern Assam.
It was the first stratified Neolithic site excavated in Northeast India, giving the region its first securely dated and layered Neolithic sequence rather than isolated surface finds.
Pottery decorated by pressing a cord-wrapped paddle against the wet clay, leaving woven impressions. It is characteristic of East and Southeast Asian Neolithic traditions and rare elsewhere in India.
The shouldered celts, cord-marked pottery and jadeite all point eastwards, suggesting that the Northeast Indian Neolithic belonged to a Southeast and East Asian cultural sphere rather than to mainland Indian traditions.