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Oongar Babar, Thatta

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It is situated north of Jheruck, bound to Hyderabad- Thatta road on right side, west of river Indus, in taluka Thatta. It is great settlement of Babar, Dal, Shoro, Khaskheli, Khoso and other tribes. There is a High School, and a police check post. Oongar (Milestone 101) is a early Paleolithic site in (Lower Sindh). At Oongar the occurrence of flint seams in the Ranikot limestone beds had already been pointed out by Blandford (1880), while Dr. Allchin in 1976 and 1978 was the first to report the presence of prehistoric flint sites on the top of the mesas, which he attributed to different periods of the Palaeolithic. The presence of Indus Civilization workshops and quarries was first noticed during the 2006 surveys at both Daphro and Bekhain, and again, at Oongar, in 2008. Even though most of the prehistoric sites have already been destroyed by recent, illegal limestone quarrying, nevertheless a few of them still exist on top of the mesas of more difficult access. Along the southern edge of the narrow mesa between Oongar and Daphro, Indus Civilization flint extraction trenches, flake workshops and clusters of "fresh" artifacts of a brownish grey color (10 YR6/2) are still clearly visible. Dr. Bridget Alehin reached at the "mile stone 101" in nearly 1975-76, but that site was identified earlier by an officer of Department of Archaeology, Pakistan in 1965. As there was no distinguished settlement in the vicinity of this site, so this site was given name of "mile stone 101", because there (National highway Hyderabad-Thatto- Karachi) was positioning Karachi 101 mile stone. Presently in the country kilometer, system prevails, therefore now stationing a stone of "Karachi 163 kilometer". It is oldest discovered site in the southern Sindh, which is situated on the right side of Indus, near the Oongar police station, union council Jheruk, district Thatta. Dr. Alehin Bridget assigns it a big fortune of flint stones. But infact this cache is far extensive and spread over big area, which Dr. Alehin has not yet examined. The ridges of lime- stones are shaped in horse nail in halfcircle and this roof also is horizontal flat like Aror. The area of this ridge is two kilometers in square, and there are scattered flint, blade and cores. On this context, Dr. Alehin assigns this site extraordinary than other ridges, which are located near it. But Dr. Alehin is not correct in this hypothesis, because the series of flint stones, blades and cores are on the other ridges also. Here, the color of flint stones is dark reddish and also patina, just as observed at the Rohri hills. Dr. Alehin examining the date of flint, states that: "Here at hand tools and heap of factory, belongs to early, middle and Paleolithic Age, it is also probable that they belong to Mesolithic period and pre-Harapian period, and they are on extensive scale. She describes that many discovered tools belong to early period, which include especially cutting tools, incisor, hand-axe and cores."

[Source: Text and Photographs: Thatta A Historical Reflection by District Government Thatta | Coordinates: EFT]