Archaeology of Wari-Bateshwar

Wari and Bateshwar are two adjacent villages in Amlabo Union underBelabo police station in Narsingdi district, Bangladesh. It is situated on an isolatedbit of the Pleistocene terrace at Manohardi-Sibpur, which is detached from the Madhupurtract by the Old Brahmaputra and the Laksya rivers. Since the 40s of the last century, alarge number of cultural materials of Wari-Bateshwar have been reported from surfacecollections and chance excavations. Systematic archaeological exploration at the sitewas carried out in 1998-99 season by the author and subsequently a number of excavationsconducted at the site since 2000. Archaeological investigations at Wari-Bateshwarrevealed that the site had been occupied from the 4th century BC onwards with occasionalbreaks. The present paper is the detail report of all the evidences from thearchaeological record in the form of physical remains unearthed from explorations andexcavations till date and analyzes them to understand the nature and behaviors of thepeople who produced them. This also places Wari-Bateswar in the macro-level of IndianOcean maritime trade network during the early historic period