Reconstructing Historical Landscape Based on Paleochannel Investigations and Archaeological Discoveries in Debalgarh-Anulia of West Bengal, India

Past human activity patterns have been embedded in archaeological, epigraphic, and historical records. Ancient civilizations are manifestations of human spatial behavioral patterns. The Lost City of Ganges, identified by Ptolemy in the second century A.D. in the mouth of Ganga in West Bengal, is one such, but its site is still a matter of dispute. The recent discovery of Debalgarh and Anulia has added a new dimension to this context. The presence of Chandraketugarh, another renowned site, is already identified by some eminent historians as the heart of the Gangaridai civilization, which raises a research hypothesis on the continuity of the past civilization in a linear fashion along the past coastline served by several ancient ports. The pattern of culture developed in the past with a focus on the dynamics of the cultural landscape is the outcome of the study that reveals the characteristics of the hinterland of a lost port city. This paper is an attempt to address the research gap in this context using geoinformatics tools followed by intensive ground truth verification through fieldwork relating to archaeological sites and traces of paleo-channels from which a new historical geography of cultural heritage has been derived.