Daily diet of the inhabitants seems to have been of rice, meat, and fish. Use of copper was known, domesticated animals and livestock were kept, while agriculture (rice, sugarcane, and other crops) and commerce formed to be the backbone of their economy. The houses were rectangular to square or round, framed with thick wooden or bamboos posts, the roofs sometimes showed terracotta tiles, floors had lateritic pellets or rammed moorum or terracotta nodules, and the walls had reeds plastered with mud from both sides. The residents lived in citadels, and houses that were made of unfired clay reinforced with reeds, while the floors and walls were of plastered beaten laterite. The ASI reports of the excavations at Pandu Rajar Dhibi during 1962-65 have revealed that Bengal during the latter half of the 2nd millennium BCE had in place a well developed urban culture, with towns having well planned streets and pavements. While such artifacts of Neolithic and Chalcolithic era are commonly seen across the Raarbhumi and the adjoining three districts, the excavations at the Pandu Rajar Dhibi changed the course of studies into the pre-proto historic and ancient Bengal. Another village beside the Damodar river had produced similar archaeological artefacts of microlithic tools made of crystals and other crushed stones it was thus clear that the place was most likely a factory for producing such tools. Near the Pandu Rajar dhibi is the village Bonkoti where excavations had revealed innumerable microlithic tools made of wood and crystal. This entire area is the purabhumi or the original fertile tract of prehistoric and ancient Bengal, where settlements from the Stone Age era grew up beside the banks of these roaring monsoon-water-fed rivers, and agriculture started. The Raarbhumi is fed by the seasonal Ajoy, Mayurakhhi, Kopai, Bakreshwar, Kunnur, and Damodar rivers, while the rivers Subornorekha and Kangsaboti feed the adjoining districts of Medinipur, Bankura, and Purulia. Among these the most important site is known as the “Pandu Rajar Dhibi,” in the valley of the river Ajay, near Bolpur, district Bardhaman.
Some archaeological excavations in the 1960s-70s in the core area of Raarbhumi (Birbhum and Bardhaman) in West Bengal brought about revolutionary changes in the study of Bengal history. Bengal also finds mention in the book Indica, written by Megasthenes, who referred to it as Gangaridai. The other adjoining janapadas of Bengal at that time were Kalinga (modern Odisha), Videha (now Nepal), and Assam which the Mahabharata mentions as Pragyajyotisha. Each part was ruled by different tribes, and the languages they spoke belonged to the non-Aryan group of languages (Nishadas or the Austro-Asiatic, Alpine-Dinaric, etc) still extant among some of the tribal communities, such as Kol, Khasi, Santhal, Bhil, and Shabara. The Mahabharata talks of this area as divided into different kingdoms: Magadha, Banga, Pundra, Anga, and Suhma. The history of Bengal goes long back archaeologically, wherein tools from the Stone Age era dating back to almost 20,000 years have been found from various sites.
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