Kayatha Culture: Problems and Issues ESHA PRASAD Abstract The Kayatha culture is one of the most important Chalcolithic cultures of India and specifically of Madhya Pradesh. Its discovery raised questions among the scholars like its origin, extent, cultural significance etc. Quite a few number of Kayatha culture sites have been excavated which however complicated the understanding of the Kayatha culture even more rather than providing significant answers. The issues and problems associated with the Kayatha culture have been pointed out. Based on the issues and problems, a re- analysis of the Kayatha culture ceramics has been carried out and it has been proposed that Chocolate Slipped Ware should not be considered as the characteristic ceramic of the Kayatha culture. Instead the Red on Cream Variety of Red Ware should be recognised as the main parameter for the identification of the Kayatha culture. Keywords Chalcolithic, Kayatha culture, Explored sites, Excavated sites, Stratigraphy, Chronological Problems, Dating, Re-analysis. Introduction V.S. Wakankar of Vikram University, Ujjain carried out extensive survey in the Malwa region and identified various Chalcolithic sites. In his exploration, he found a Chalcolithic pottery hitherto unknown and termed it as the Nepawali Meen Ware (Wakankar 1967). His work showed the existence of an earlier culture but it was based on the surface collection and was not from a stratified context. It was against this background that he did the excavation at Kayatha from 1965-67 (Wakankar 1967) and brought to light a new Chalcolithic culture in the Malwa region termed as the Kayatha Culture. The earlier reported Nepawali Meen Ware was re- casted as Kayatha Ware (Wakankar 1967). In order to understand the distribution of Kayatha culture sites he carried out exploration in the Malwa region and reported sites pertaining to the Kayatha 49