Epilogue

This chapter is not merely a summary or recapitulation of the vast archaeological data that has been utilized to reconstruct the settlement dynamics of coastal Bengal. Rather, it raises various relevant issues that are connected with the mentioned reconstruction and, above all, discusses the unresolved questions pertaining to various aspects of coastal life including culture, religion, and the trading and maritime network. While reconstructing the mechanism of contact between the hinterland and the littoral an attempt has been made by the author to explore the possibility of at least three ‘contact zones’ that were crucial in formulating not only a cultural whole but also the monitoring agencies behind this reciprocation. The involvement of religious ideologies particularly Buddhism also received special attention towards the involvement of the major and minor centres connecting the development of the Ganga valley, the Chittagong and Myanmar coast and that of the rest of Southeast Asia and obviously the participation of Buddhist establishments in Orissa and Andhra Pradesh. The Epilogue concludes by tracing a long chrono-cultural sequence of coastal Bengal from the BRW-associated early village farming cultural phases to the 12th–13th centuries CE. The imagery of a greater cultural orbit has been adhered to in this concluding chapter.