By Bhogtoram Mawroh
Last week, I achieved my target of cycling up to Lumsohpetbneng. It was very tiring, but after more than thirty minutes of climbing, I was finally standing at the summit inside the enclosure where the Seng Khasi conduct their yearly pilgrimage. Lumsohpetbeng holds a very important place in the cosmology of the Khasi, as it is associated with the story of how the world was populated by human beings. In the beginning, there were sixteen families who lived in heaven but would come down to earth to farm. At that time, the earth was connected to heaven by a tree that acted as a celestial staircase. I’ve heard several versions of how this connection was severed, but regardless of the version, the outcome was always the same: seven families who came down made earth their home, while the nine remained in heaven. These seven became known as the Hynniewtrep people (meaning “seven huts”), another name for the Khasi. Lumsohpetbeng is considered to be the site where the celestial staircase was located, making it sacred for the followers of indigenous faith. But Lumsohpetbeng is much more than that.
Instead of taking the same route down to the highway, I decided to search for the village of Lawnongthroh. After asking a couple of people, I finally found the village. The village, situated a little lower down, is inhabited by fewer than 100 households, but it holds great importance. This village is an important archaeological site that reveals a great deal about an ancient Neolithic settlement whose origins date back more than 3,000 years. The site has been settled multiple times, with the latest settlement dated to the 5th century CE, which is over 1,500 years ago. However, the earliest settlement is dated to around 770 BCE and 1220 BCE, approximately 3,243 years ago. This site was excavated by Marco Mitri, who is currently a history teacher at North Eastern Hill University. The artifacts recovered from this site include stone tools and ceramics of Neolithic origin, an archaeological period that began 12,000 years ago and is significant for the discovery of agriculture.
A total of 2,058 hand-made potsherds of different varieties were recovered, varying in size, thickness, type, and exterior design patterns. Pottery making has completely disappeared from the Khasi region and is now limited to the village of Larnai in Thadlaskein Block of West Jaintia Hills. The pots made in this village are crafted without a wheel which means the technique used could date back more than 3,000 years. What is even more interesting is the recovery of shouldered and facetted tools from the excavation sites. In an interview Marco Mitri gave to a YouTube channel a year ago, he explained that shouldered tools are the most common type found in the zone stretching from Northeast India to Southeast Asia, having been developed in South China around 5,000 BCE, or more than 7,000 years ago.
The South China region is very important for many reasons. According to the 2014 paper, “Archaeological and Genetic Insights into the Origins of Domesticated Rice” by Briana L. Grossa and Zhijun Zhao, it is around the Yangtze River (located in South China) that rice is believed to have been first domesticated, around 8,000 years ago, or 6,000 BCE. South China, or specifically the Nanling Mountains, is also the region where, according to the 2021 paper “Genomic Insights into Citrus Domestication and Its Important Agronomic Traits” by Muhammad Junaid Rao, Hao Zuo, and Qiang Xu, the mandarin orange was first domesticated. Finally, according to Peter Bellwood’s 2005 book “The First Farmers,” South China is also the ancestral homeland of the Austroasiatic and Tai-speaking peoples. These developments are all intimately connected.
Mandarin, or Khasi Mandarin, is an indigenous fruit grown especially in the southern part of Meghalaya. It was taken by Arab traders into Syria, and the Crusaders helped propagate it throughout southern Europe. But the most important connection here is to another crop: rice. In his 2011 paper chapter “Rice and the Austro-asiatic and Hmong-Mien Homelands,” George Van Driem has stated that there is linguistic evidence that ancient Austro-asiatics and ancient Hmong-Mien were the first rice cultivators. The Austroasiatic people, based on the work of other scholars mentioned in the 2018 book “Early Indians” by Tony Joseph, were the ones who brought the domesticated japonica variety of rice, which hybridized with the semi-domesticated indica variety, giving rise to the modern indica variety. This occurred around or after 2000 BCE, a very important time period.
In his 2018 paper, “Ancient Genomics Reveals Four Prehistoric Migration Waves into Southeast Asia,” McColl and his colleagues state that present-day Southeast Asian populations derive their ancestry from four different population groups. The oldest are the Hoabinhian, who share ancestry with the Andamanese Onge, who are known in South Asia as the Ancient Ancestral South Indians or the first indigenous people of India. They were a hunter-gatherer population. But by 4,000 years ago, or 2,000 BCE, there was a demographic expansion from East Asia (South China) into mainland Southeast Asia, identified as the early Austroasiatic farmer expansion. They were later followed by the Kra-Dai (e.g., Thai and Laotian languages) and Austronesian peoples (e.g., Malay, Filipino, etc.). Hence, the Austroasiatic people are the oldest farming population in mainland Southeast Asia. Later, this group expanded west into what is today known as India.
At present, there are two Austro-asiatic-speaking groups in India: the Khasi and the Munda. For a long time, there was confusion over the homeland of the Austroasiatic people and, with it, the identity of the Munda. In 2011, Gyaneshwer Chaubey and his colleagues laid to rest the debate by proving that the Munda are a mixed population of Southeast Asian ancestry, having mixed with an ancient Dravidian population from 2,000 to 3,800 years ago, or around 2,000 BCE. What is interesting is that it appears that Dravidian and Munda languages were in contact prior to any Indo-Aryan presence in eastern India. This means that the Austro-asiatic-speaking people predated the arrival of the Indo-Aryans from Central Asia, who brought Sanskrit and early forms of Vedic Hinduism to the subcontinent. What about the Khasi? When did they arrive?
Now, if the migration of the Austroasiatic population took place from the east, then the first region where they would have arrived must be Northeast India. From there, they would have continued to Central India, where they would have mixed with the local Dravidian population, giving rise to the Munda. This is where the 2015 paper “A Late Neolithic Expansion of Y Chromosomal Haplogroup O2a1-M95 from East to West” by Arunkumar and colleagues becomes very important. Based on Y chromosome O2a1-M95, the paper found that the expansion of Austroasiatic peoples occurred from the east, with the gene arriving in Northeast India around 5,000 to 6,000 years ago and in East India around 4,000 years ago. This then brings us back to another site excavated by Marco Mitri.
Apart from Lawnongthroh, Marco Mitri also discovered the site of Myrkhan, a village in Upper Shillong, which revealed Neolithic tools. What was different about this site is that it was a seasonal camp for workers who used the stones found here to make tools. Unlike Lawnongthroh, it was a workshop and not a permanent habitation. The dating of the site, however, revealed that it dated from 1885 BCE to 1765 BCE, i.e., around 600 years older than Lawnongthroh, dating back approximately 3,900 years ago. In his interview, Marco Mitri mentioned that the whole region around Meghalaya, Karbi Anglong, and North Cachar Hills appears to have the same cultural complex, which is quite interesting, since many areas in present-day Karbi Anglong and North Cachar Hills have Khasi names, such as Lumding (fire hill). This entire area must have been inhabited by the Khasi at one time. Over time, they must have assimilated with incoming groups, namely the Tibeto-Burman-speaking Karbi and Dimasa. This means that older sites in these areas could still lie unexplored.
What this discussion proves is that, despite Marco Mitri’s carefulness in not naming the group that inhabited those sites, the Khasi are the second oldest group in the subcontinent, having arrived after the Iranian Zagros mountain farmers mixed with the Ancient Ancestral South Indians, giving rise to the ancient Dravidians who created the Harappan civilization. The Khasi would have arrived at a time when the Harappan civilization was still in its early stages. They would have come into contact with these ancient Dravidians around the time when the civilization was in its mature stage. As the Munda, they would have watched as the civilization began to decline and new groups from Central Asia arrived. The story is becoming clearer, and as more research is conducted, the overall picture will continue to improve. Hopefully, in time, many more local scholars like Marco Mitri will help uncover more about our story and how we made this place our home.
(The views expressed in the article are those of the author and do not reflect in any way his affiliation to any organisation or institution)