Kashmir HopeA living recordBefore 3000 to c. 2000 BCE
Early settlement at Kanispur
Baramulla, Kashmir Valley · Archaeology
Excavations at Kanispur identified occupation before pottery use, followed by pottery-bearing settlements. Later layers belong to the Kushan and medieval periods.
A settlement before the town of Kanishka
Kanispur, also called Kanispora, lies near Baramulla in the northwestern Kashmir Valley. Its archaeological importance reaches far beyond the later town associated with the Kushan ruler Kanishka. Beneath and beside historical remains, excavators identified evidence of much earlier settlement. This article concerns those Neolithic communities and the traces they left of building, making tools and growing food.
Kalhana’s Rajatarangini names Kanishkapura among towns attributed to rulers called Hushka, Jushka and Kanishka. That account belongs to a literary reconstruction of the historical past. It does not describe the Neolithic settlement. A later royal foundation and an earlier farming community can occupy the same locality without sharing a foundation date, political organization or name.
What the excavation uncovered
The Archaeological Survey of India’s 1998–99 review describes work directed by B. R. Mani in three areas. The investigation included the Rajteng terrace and nearby ground. Seventeen excavation squares, comprising 39 quadrants, were opened wholly or partly. The excavators distinguished five broad cultural periods, beginning with two Neolithic phases and continuing into historical occupation.
The earliest deposit in the reported trench was only about 15–20 centimetres thick. It lay directly above natural soil and contained a stone celt but no pottery. Archaeologists call this an aceramic phase. In the following, pottery-bearing phase, four successive floors and postholes were interpreted as remains of rectangular houses, probably with thatched roofs. Repeated floors document rebuilding or renewal within the excavated area; they do not provide a count of every house in the settlement.
Pots, tools and household work
The pottery-bearing levels produced bone implements and polished stone celts. The ceramic assemblage included grey, red and black wares, with both handmade and wheel-turned examples reported in the archaeological overview. Some vessels carried burnishing, brushed surfaces, applied bands or impressions from mats beneath their bases. Bowls, jars and longer-necked vessels show a range of forms rather than one uniform household container.
These finds preserve decisions made by craftspeople and households. A mat impression records part of a vessel’s manufacture; a posthole records where a support stood. Neither identifies its maker by name. Reconstructing everyday life therefore depends on the relationship between objects, floors and deposits, not on treating an isolated attractive object as a complete portrait of the community.
Farming and the evidence of charred plants
Anil K. Pokharia and colleagues studied plant remains recovered by water flotation from excavation deposits. Their research places the sampled Ceramic Neolithic material around 2700–2000 BCE. It identifies wheat, barley, lentil, field pea and grass pea, alongside walnut and possible almond remains. The crop combination points to cultivation suited to cool conditions, while the nuts broaden the evidence for food beyond cereals.
The study includes direct radiocarbon dating of wheat and barley. Earlier charcoal results suggest occupation before 3000 BCE, but the researchers recovered no botanical material from those earliest contexts. Consequently, the cereal evidence should not be projected backwards as a demonstrated crop list for the aceramic phase. A settlement’s earliest occupation and its earliest directly dated crops are separate questions.
Reading the dates and the gaps
Older summaries assigned broad millennium ranges to Kanispur’s aceramic and ceramic phases. The later plant study provides a more specific chronology for sampled material. These are different stages of research, rather than evidence for a recorded founding year. The timeline uses an approximate ancient date; no month or day is known.
Kanispur also has Kushan and later remains, treated separately in this encyclopedia’s research list. Their presence does not establish uninterrupted occupation from the first Neolithic floor onwards. The surviving record is a sequence of excavated contexts, with gaps and uncertainties. It allows Kashmir’s early inhabitants to be studied through their work and material surroundings without assigning them identities that the evidence cannot recover.
Reviewed 1 October 2026. Research records are retained by the editors. Corrections and additional evidence are welcome.
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