It is postulated that semi-nomadic Chalcolithic people may have lived and practiced agriculture only during a certain season. Here, the evidence of crop production reveals cultivation of bajra-pearl millet (Pennisetum typhoids). Generally, the early farming cultures in central India and Deccan produced barley (Hordeum vulgare) whereas the Kaothe people were cultivating bajra.
The succeeding Chalcolithic people did not cultivate it. Besides agriculture, the Kaothe society also practiced hunting and fishing. The Malwa culture spread in northern and central parts of Maharashtra in around 1700 B.C., primarily in search of fresh pastures. Inamgaon is an important excavated site of Malwa culture.
The subsistence pattern of Malwa people indicates cultivation of barley besides domestication of animals and hunting of wild games. Jorwe culture can be considered as a representative Chalcolithic culture of Maharashtra and is spread over the entire state except the coastal strip on the west and Vidarbha region in the Northeast.
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Prakash in the Tapi valley, Daimabad in the Pravara-Godavari valley and Inamgaon in the Bhima valley constitute the major centres of this culture. However, the concentration of sites in these regions is not uniform. Here, the absence or presence of black cotton soil has been seen as an important determinant. As Tapi valley has the most fertile topography, highest density of sites is found here.
Godavari basin, because of undaunting surface records a lesser density while the Bhima valley, more or less a rocky terrain with thin soil cover, has sporadic distribution and the minimum density. Many early farming settlements have been found in the Khandesh region of the Tapi drainage.
However, these are located mainly on the tributaries than on the main river. Because of erosion and bad land topography, irrigation and intensive cultivation is not possible here and so population concentration is not found on the banks of river Tapi. Pravara-Godavari valley in itself is also not uniform.
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While the upper reaches can support few farming settlements, the lower reaches have larger tracts of black soil. However, the settlement density in the lower reaches is not as high as in Tapi valley. In Bhima valley except for certain small patches at Chandoli, Songaon, Walki and Inamgaon, the whole of the basin is dry and does not contain large stretches of cultivable soil. According to Leshnik, the black cotton soil zone clearly represents an ecological adaptation dictated by available technology, knowledge and means.
Except for the site of Walki evidence of plough cultivation is not found anywhere. It has been suggested that the large fissures that develop in summer in the fields help in circulation of air and serve the purposes of a plough and so is the old adage ‘the black cotton soil ploughs itself. Antlers (each of the branched horns of a stag or deer) found at Inamgaon could also have been used as plough.
Perforated stone disc used as weights for digging sticks have been found. The digging sticks were useful in burn and slash cultivation or jhum cultivation. After the forest was burnt, sowing and planting was done directly in to the ashes. Crop production and plant economy is better attested in Malwa and Jorwe cultures at Inamgaon and Daimabad in comparison to other sites.
Jorwe farmers practiced rotation of kharif and rabi crops. At Inamgaon, though the principal cereal was barley, cereals like wheat, rice, jowar, kulith (Dolichos lablab), and ragi (Eleusine coracana), green pea, lentil, green and black grams were also cultivated.
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The traces of an irrigation channel (extant length 118m; 3.50 m deep in the middle, 4 m wide) and an embankment parallel to it, belonging to Jorwe culture suggests that it could be used as a narrow water tank and water could be diverted to adjoining fields by gravity flow. This irrigation channel is supposed to have helped in the cultivation of wheat and hyacinth bean.
The channel probably fell into disuse after BC 1200 or so. Late Jorwe levels show decline of agriculture and rise in the weaning age. At Inamgaon is reported a rapid decrease of the quantity of charred grains with a simultaneous increase in animal bones.