Description : Kaytha or Kayatha is a village and an archaeological site in the Ujjain district of Madhya Pradesh, India. It is located in the Tarana tehsil. Several Chalcolithic sites have been discovered in the Malwa region of central India. The site at Kayatha, situated on the right bank of the Choti Kali Sindh river (a tributary of Chambal river), is the type site of this culture, known as "Kayatha culture". Excavations conducted by V. S. Wakankar (1965–66), and by M. K. Dhavalikar and Z. D. Ansari (1968) revealed layers from five different periods: - Kayatha culture - Ahar culture (3000 BCE to 1500 BCE) - Malwa culture (1600 BCE to 1300 BCE) - Early historical culture - Sunga-Kushan-Gupta culture (second to first century BCE) The Kayatha culture represents the earliest known agriculture settlement in the present-day Malwa region. It also featured advanced copper metallurgy and stone blade industry. Using calibrated radiocarbon, Dhavalikar dated this culture to a period spanning from 2400 BCE to 2000 BCE. However, calibrated dates by Gregory Possehl place it between 2200 BCE and 2000 BCE.
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