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20-513: The precise location and size of the region has been the subject of academic uncertainty. Some scholars, such as the archaeologists Bridget and Raymond Allchin , believe the term Brahmavarta to be synonymous with the Aryavarta region. According to the Manusmriti, the purity of a place and its inhabitants decreased the further it was from Brahmavarta. Aryan (noble) people were believed to inhabit

40-575: A Brahmin born in that land. The French Indologist who later converted to Hinduism, Alain Daniélou , notes that the Rig Veda , which is an earlier Hindu text, describes the region later known as Brahmavarta as the heartland of Aryan communities and the geography described in it suggests that those communities had not moved much beyond the area. He says that later texts, contained in the Brahmanas , indicate that

60-578: A Privatdozent at the University of Breslau from 1927-1930 and a lecturer in geology at the University of Freiburg from 1931-34 he emigrated to England after being dismissed from university because his wife Etta was Jewish. He was aided by the Academic Assistance Council (founded by William Beveridge later known as the Council for Assisting Refugee Academics - CARA) worked as a research associate at

80-733: A number of innovative field projects. This included directing fieldwork in the Great Thar Desert with Professor K. T. M. Hegde of the M.S. University of Baroda and Professor Andrew Goudie of the University of Oxford . Bridget subsequently developed links with the Pakistan Geological Survey and played a critical role in initiating collaborations which resulted in a survey of the Potwar Plateau directed by Professor Robin Dennell of

100-486: A professorship. From 1946 to 1963 he was professor, the first in Environmental Archaeology, and head of environmental archaeology at the University of London's Institute of Archaeology, where postgraduate students included Andrée Rosenfeld . His most influential book was The Pleistocene Period (1945). In it he made use of chronology estimation based on sea-levels, glacial moraine, loess and river terraces. This

120-690: A specialism in the South African Stone Age but decided to return to England and in 1950 she began a PhD at the Institute of Archaeology studying under Professor Frederick Zeuner to broaden her knowledge of the lithic industries of the Old World. It was here in 1950 that Bridget met fellow PhD student Raymond Allchin and married in March 1951. Travelling to India for the first time with Raymond in 1951, Bridget steadily but firmly established herself as

140-534: Is called 'Brahmavarta' - the region of Brahman . The conduct handed down from generation to generation among the social classes and the intermediate classes of that land is called the 'conduct of good people'. Kuruksetra and the lands of the Matsyas , Pancalas , and Surasenakas constitute the 'land of Brahmin seers', which borders on the Brahmavarta. All the people on earth should learn their respective practices from

160-528: Is named in honour of Allchin and her husband. Frederick Everard Zeuner Frederick Everard Zeuner (8 March 1905 – 5 November 1963) was a German palaeontologist and geological archaeologist who specialized on the Pleistocene epoch . He was a contemporary of Gordon Childe at the Institute of Archaeology of the University of London . Zeuner proposed a detailed scheme of correlation and dating of European climatic and prehistoric cultural events on

180-597: The University of Sheffield and Professor Helen Rendell of the University of Sussex to search for Palaeolithic industries during the second phase of the British Archaeological Mission to Pakistan with the support of the Leverhulme Trust . An independent author and researcher in her own right, she published The Stone-Tipped Arrow: a Study of Late Stone Age Cultures of the Tropical Regions of

200-426: The "good" area and the proportion of Mleccha (barbarian) people in the population rose as the distance from it increased. This implies a series of concentric circles of decreasing purity as one moved away from the Brahmavarta centre. The translation of Manusmriti made by Patrick Olivelle , a professor of Sanskrit , says: The land created by the gods and lying between the divine rivers Saraswati and Drishadwati

220-558: The 'madness' of George III . Bridget was raised on a farm in Galloway in lowland Scotland, which she largely ran with her mother during the Second World War with the assistance of prisoners of war. Bridget started a degree in History and Ancient History at University College London but, at the end of her first year, left for South Africa when her parents decided to emigrate. Interested in

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240-527: The British Museum (Natural History) from 1934-36. During World War II he worked with the Anti-Locust Research Centre. Zeuner became a lecturer in geochronology at the University of London's Institute of Archaeology from 1936 to 1945 thanks to assistance from Mortimer Wheeler . He received a D. Sc. from the university of London in 1942 for his work on fossil Ensifera . In 1944 he was promoted to

260-609: The Old World (1966) and The Prehistory and Palaeography of the Great Indian Desert (with Andrew Goudie and K. T. M. Hegde: 1978) and Living Traditions: Studies in the Ethnoarchaeology of South Asia (1994). Away from the field, Bridget held the role of founding Editor of the journal South Asian Studies for over a decade and was Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (FSA) and a Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge . She

280-473: The basis of Milankovitch cycles . He also worked on Orthopteran insects, with the bush cricket genus Zeuneriana named after him. He has been considered as a pioneer of environmental archaeology. Zeuner was born in Berlin, Germany. He studied at Berlin followed by Tubingen and finally received his Ph.D. from the University of Breslau in 1927. At Breslau he was a student of Walther Soergel. After working as

300-551: The centre of religious activity had moved from Brahmavarta to an adjacent area southeast of it known as Brahmarisihidesha ( Sanskrit : ब्रह्मर्षिदेश , romanized :  Brahmarṣideśa ). Again, some sources consider Brahmarisihidesh a to be synonymous with Brahmavarta. Seal dated to Gupta period with inscription 'Brahma Varta'' was excavated from Purana Qila, Delhi. Notes Citations Bridget Allchin Bridget Allchin FSA (10 February 1927 – 27 June 2017)

320-414: The culture of neighbouring Basutoland , Bridget persuaded her parents to let her leave the farm and recommence her studies. Enrolling at the University of Cape Town she read African Studies , which included anthropology, archaeology and an African language. While there, she learnt to speak Sesotho and took up flying lessons. Taught by Professor Isaac Shapira and Dr A. J. H. Goodwin, Bridget developed

340-558: The most prominent South Asian Prehistorian in the UK. A pioneering female field-archaeologist in South Asia at a time when there were none, Bridget's research interests and publications were to stretch across South Asia from Afghanistan to Sri Lanka . At first Bridget's academic and organisational skills were dedicated to supporting Raymond's fieldwork but, despite not holding a full-time academic post, she successfully raised funds and established

360-818: Was a founding trustee of the Ancient India and Iran Trust and was its Secretary and chairman, as well as founding member and Secretary General of the European Association of South Asian Archaeologists, editing a number of its proceedings. She died in Norwich on 27 June 2017 at the age of 90. She is survived by her two children, Sushila and William. Allchin was awarded the Royal Asiatic Society Gold Medal in 2014 for her leading work in South Asia. The Annual Allchin Symposium of South Asian Archaeology

380-633: Was an archaeologist who specialised in South Asian archaeology. She published books, some co-authored with her husband, Raymond Allchin (1923–2010). She was born Bridget Gordon, in Oxford on 10 February 1927. She was the daughter of Major Stephen Gordon of the Indian Army Medical Service and his wife Elsie (née Cox). Her doctor father was from a family of medical practitioners, including Dr Thomas Monro, an ancestor who had attempted to treat

400-674: Was followed by another book on Dating the Past (1946). He was involved in examinations of excavated material from the Neolithic and he made use of radiocarbon dating. This would lead to another major work A History of Domesticated Animals (1963). He was a member of the Geologische Vereinigung in Germany and was admitted to the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina (1952). He was also

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