Draught Animals, Other means of Transport and Agriculture in Rural India (An Old and Rare Book)

Foreword In 1977 when I was Director of Anthropological Survey of India we had decided to publish all unpublished data lying in the Basic data Archives generated by Prof. N. K. Bose's celebrated study of material culture traits. As is known he had initiated an extensive survey of about three dozen material culture traits in 313 out of 322 districts of the country by a team of workers. The result of this survey was published under the title Peasant Life in India: A study in Indian Unity and Diversity (1961). In 1962 Prof. Bose entrusted two scholars of the Survey. B. N. Saraswati and N. K. Behura, with the survey of pottery technology all over India. Saraswati and Behura covered 122 districts for this study. Reports from another 21 districts were made available to them by their colleagues. Thus the material for 143 districts formed the basis of their report which was in 1966 under the title Pottery Techniques in peasant India. This work highlighted the linkages in the Pottery of the past and the present, and the clustering of potter castes and pottery technology. Data had also been collected for other items under the material culture traits survey. Eleven items were We have published reports on shrines, diet, ornaments. festivals etc.

Preface In 1959 the then Director of the Anthropological Survey of India, Professor Nirmal Kumar Bose initiated an All India study of the distribution of material traits. All together fortyone traits were selected for this study (See Appendix). The data was collected from 311 out of 322 districts of India between October 1959 to march 1961. Although, in the majority of the districts, only one village was studied per district, in several places more than one village was surveyed for representing the important variations in the district.

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