Redefining Archaeology and the Ethno-history of Pre-colonial Singhbhum

Abstract: Conventionally archaeology stands for the remains of cities, palaces, temples, statues etc as well as numismatic findings often emanating from centralized power centres. As these remains often do not historicize ethnic communities, we are forced to redefine the very term archaeology when we attempt a reconstruction of ethno-history. But as we redefine archaeology to include survivals of a different genre, like ponds, mango groves, sasandiri (gravestone) and evidences of linguistic archaeology such as villages and names of arable lands, a new vista of information opens up. In the absence of centralized polity, these remains were mostly promoted by the community and constitute a different genre of archaeology that may be termed as social rather than community archaeology. With this inclusive archaeology, this essay seeks to reconstruct the ethno-history of the pre-colonial Singhbhum, the available corpus of which is both sparse and fragmentary. The reason for this ethnographic lack could be the lingering faith in the conventional meaning of archaeology the remains of which, in Singhbhum, mostly belong to the time and the people that either predated the advent of the tribal groups or related non-tribal people living here. These often create the notion of specific cultural spaces that embody archaeological layers representing multiple village histories. As Bernard Cohn said, ‘There is not one past of the village but many.