The remains of a 2,800-year-old human settlement have been found in Gujarat’s Vadnagar, which also accidentally is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s native village.
Researchers from IIT Kharagpur, Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and Deccan College have found the evidence.
#WATCH | Gujarat: Remains of a 2800-year-old settlement found in PM Narendra Modi's village, Vadnagar. pic.twitter.com/Fefjt7Dn9Z
— ANI (@ANI) January 16, 2024
The human settlement that goes back as old as 800 BC revealed the presence of seven cultural stages, said officials. Dr Anindya Sarkar, Professor of Geology and Geophysics at IIT Kharagpur told ANI news agency that the excavation work has been going on since 2016 and the team has dug up to a depth of 20 metres.
The study of deep archaeological excavation at Vadnagar indicates that the rise and fall of different kingdoms during this long 3,000 years and recurrent invasions of India by central Asian warriors were driven by severe changes in climate like rainfall or droughts, IIT Kharagpur said in a statement.
Seven cultural phases or periods were discovered during excavation in Vadnagar’s multiple deep trenches. These included the Mauryan, Indo-Greek, Indo-Scythian or Shaka-Kshatrapas, Hindu-Solankis, Sultanate-Mughal (Islamic), to Gaekwad—British colonial rule—and the city’s current state.