The book is about the rise of civilization in the Ganga Plains. Though there are
traces of occupation starting as early as 8th millennium BCE as indicated by
radiometric characterizations but those early footprints of humankind in the
region were not only unsteady and vacillating but also very sparse. An
uninterrupted cultural occupation of the Plains starts much later. The
foundations of a civilization that has an unbroken history for the millennia to
come were laid down by a culture known in the archaeological parlance as the
Painted Grey Ware (PGW) culture. Our knowledge of this phase of protohistoric
culture has grown manifolds over the last few