Shri Dharampal Agrawal Jee with his Best Student Shri Rajiv Dixit Jee

D. P. Agrawal (Dharmapal Agrawal) is a

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...

of Indian science and technology, archaeologist, and author. He has published works on Indian

archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

metallurgy Metallurgy is a domain of materials science and engineering that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their inter-metallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are known as alloys. Metallurgy encompasses both the sc ...

, the history of science, and

palaeoclimate Paleoclimatology (British spelling, palaeoclimatology) is the study of climates for which direct measurements were not taken. As instrumental records only span a tiny part of Earth's history, the reconstruction of ancient climate is important to ...

Biography

Dharma Pal Agrawal was born on 15 March 1933 at

Almora Almora ( Kumaoni: ''Almāḍ'') is a municipal board and a cantonment town in the state of Uttarakhand, India. It is the administrative headquarters of Almora district. Almora is located on a ridge at the southern edge of the Kumaon Hills of th ...

United Provinces of British India The United Provinces of British India, more commonly known as the United Provinces, was a province of British India, which came into existence on 3 January 1921 as a result of the renaming of the ''United Provinces of Agra and Oudh''. It corre ...

(presently in

Uttarakhand Uttarakhand ( , or ; , ), also known as Uttaranchal ( ; the official name until 2007), is a state in the northern part of India. It is often referred to as the "Devbhumi" (literally 'Land of the Gods') due to its religious significance and ...

). Dharma Pal Agrawal, Brief Bio-Data
Infinity Foundation, retrieved 2015-08-27.

Career

He has worked with the

Archaeological Survey of India The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) is an Indian government agency that is responsible for archaeological research and the conservation and preservation of cultural historical monuments in the country. It was founded in 1861 by Alexande ...

Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) is a public deemed research university located in Mumbai, India that is dedicated to basic research in mathematics and the sciences. It is a Deemed University and works under the umbrella of the ...

and

Physical Research Laboratory The Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) is a National Research Institute for space and allied sciences, supported mainly by Department of Space, Government of India. This research laboratory has ongoing research programmes in astronomy and astrop ...

, all of which are All-India institutions. His researches were mainly done in the fields of

palaeoenvironment Paleoecology (also spelled palaeoecology) is the study of interactions between organisms and/or interactions between organisms and their environments across geologic timescales. As a discipline, paleoecology interacts with, depends on and informs ...

prehistoric archaeology Prehistoric archaeology is a subfield of archaeology, which deals specifically with artefacts, civilisations and other materials from societies that existed before any form of writing system or historical record. Often the field focuses on ages s ...

radiocarbon & TL dating Carbon-14, C-14, or radiocarbon, is a radioactive isotope of carbon with an atomic nucleus containing 6 protons and 8 neutrons. Its presence in organic materials is the basis of the radiocarbon dating method pioneered by Willard Libby and col ...

archaeometallurgy Archaeometallurgy is the study of the past use and production of metals by humans. It is a sub-discipline of archaeology and archaeological science. Uses Archaeometallurgical study has many uses in both the chemical and anthropological fields. Ana ...

, India's contributions to the world of science and technology. At the Physical Research Laboratory, he was a Senior Professor and Area Chairman of the Quaternary Paleo-Climate Study Area, a large multi-disciplinary research group. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania and at the International Research Center at

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ci ...

Contribution

Agrawal has made significant contributions to the fields of paleoenvironment, pre-historic archaeology, radiocarbon dating, the archaeology of metallurgy, and the history of science and technology in India. He has edited the journal ''Man and Environment'' for a number of years, and served on the advisory board of journals ''World Archaeology'' and ''Le anthropologie''. He is a fellow of the National Academy of Sciences.Fellows
, National Academy of Sciences, India, and a member of the National Commission on the History of Science. During his academic career he has published 15 books and about 250 papers on different topics.Traditional Knowledge Systems and Archaeology, About the Author
Amazon India. After retirement from the Physical Research Laboratory in 1993, he has been working as the Honorary Director of the ''Lok Vigyan Kendra'' in Almora, where he coordinates research on "

traditional knowledge Traditional knowledge (TK), indigenous knowledge (IK) and local knowledge generally refer to knowledge systems embedded in the cultural traditions of regional, indigenous, or local communities. According to the World Intellectual Property Organ ...

systems," codifying the accumulated folk knowledge on the crops, medicinal plants and biodiversity. He is also the chief editor of a multi-volume international project on the history of science and technology.

Works

; Books * ''The Copper Bronze Age in India'', Munshiram Manoharlal, 1971. * ''Prehistoric Chronology and Radiocarbon Dating in India'' (with S. Kusumgar) Munshiram Manoharlal, 1974. . * ''Protohistoric Archaeology of India'' (in Hindi, with P. L. Agrawal), U.P. Granth Akademi, Lucknow, 1975. * ''Essays in Indian Protohistory'' (with

D. K. Chakrabarti Dilip Kumar Chakrabarti (born 27 April 1941) is an Indian archaeologist, Professor Emeritus of South Asian Archaeology at Cambridge University, and a Senior Fellow at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge University. He i ...

). B.R.Publishers, 1978. . * ''The Archaeology of India''. London : Curzon Press, 1981. * ''Man and Environment in India through Ages'', New Delhi: Books and Books, 1992. * ''Dating the Human Past'' (with M. G. Vadava), Poona: Indian Society for Prehistoric and Quaternary Studies, 1995. * ''Central Himalayas: An Archaeological, Linguistic and Cultural Synthesis'' (with J.S. Kharakwal). Aryan Books International, 1998. . * ''Ancient Metal Technology and Archaeology of South Asia: A Pan-Asian Perspective''. Aryan Books International, 2000. . * ''South Asian Prehistory: A Multidisciplinary Study'' (with J.S. Kharakwal), Aryan Books International, 2002. . * ''Bronze and Iron Ages in South Asia'' (with J.S. Kharakwal), Aryan Books International, 2003. . * ''The Indus Civilization: An Interdisciplinary Perspective'', Aryan Books International, 2007. . ; Edited works * ''Palaeoclimatic and Palaeoenvironmental Changes in Asia'' (with S. K. Gupta and P. Sharma).. New Delhi : Indian National Science Academy, 1988. * ''Radiocarbon and Indian Archaeology'' (with A. Ghosh). Bombay: Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, 1973. * ''Ecology and Archaeology of Western India'' (with Agrawal, D.P. and B.M. Pande). New Delhi: Concept Publishers, 1977. * ''Climate and Geology of Kashmir and Central India : The Last 4 Million years'' (with R. V. Krishnamurthy and S. Kusumgar). T.T. Publishers (New Delhi), 1985. * ''Traditional Knowledge and Archaeology'', (with Sameer Jamal and Manikant Shah). Aryan Books International, 2007. . * ''The Harappan Technology and its Legacy'', Rupa and Co, 2009 (with Infinity Foundation). .

Views and reception

The 1971 book ''Copper Bronze Age in India'' reports an integrated study of the Copper-Bronze Age carried out at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, covering its chronology, technology and ecology.

References

External links

Some publications online
Shivanand Kanavi Blog. {{DEFAULTSORT:Agrawal, D. P. 20th-century Indian archaeologists Living people University of Calcutta alumni Scientists from Uttarakhand Indian social sciences writers Indian metallurgists Indian technology writers 1933 births