Located on the southern shore of a slender creek of the Gulf of Kachchh
Located on the southern shore of a slender creek of the Gulf of Kachchh, Bagasra in the Maliya taluka is the northernmost village situated in the Rajkot district of Gujarat. The Harappan site, regionally known by the name Gola Dhoro that means a ‘circular mound’, is placed just about half a kilometre south of the village and a kilometre east from the southern shore of the Gulf of Kachchh. Geographically, the site is found equidistant from the three major Chalcolithic cultural regions of Gujarat: Kachchh in the northwest, Saurashtra in the southwest and north Gujarat in the northeast. whereas the Kachchh sites predominantly belong to the Classical Harappan category the sites in Saurashtra belong to the Sorath Harappan.
The North Gujarat sites, on the other hand, had the Anarta tradition predating the Urban Harappan. the site so was in a position to interact with all these regions in an equal measure, which is mirrored in the cultural remains excavated from the site. There are several necessary Harappan Chalcolithic sites in the neighborhood of Bagasra that had the potential to play a crucial role in the economic activities of the site. Shikarpur in Kachchh, presently under excavation by the M.S. University of Baroda, is situated just about 20 km north of the site across the Gulf. about 30 km further north in the Kachchh district is Kanmer.
Two other vital sites, Kuntasi in the Rajkot district and Pithad in the Jamnagar district, are situated about 12 and 25 km respectively on its southeast in Saurashtra. There are variety of smaller sites in north Gujarat whose locations are not much far from Bagasra, however the foremost important one in the present context would be Nagwada, across the small Rann of Kachchh.
Bagasra / Gola Dhoro is a comparatively small, oval mound measuring around 2 hectares (1.92ht) and rising to height of 7.5 metres from the encircling fields. Excavations from 1996 to 2005 by the M.S. University of Baroda have brought to light a fortified coastal settlement having a 7.5 metre cultural deposit that comprised four subsequent stages of Harappan cultural development at the site. whereas the firstthree stages (cultural phases I to III) belonged to the Urban / Mature Harappan, the last stage (Phase IV) represented the post – urban Harappan occupation.
