The book explores the threads and traces of the development of complex society from the time of the beginning of the first farming communities in 2 millennium BC up to 4 century CE. Generating and analysing data from the explorations and excavations of archaeological sites, the book employs the conceptual category of heterarchy rather than hierarchy as a more meaningful category to understand the nature of complexities of archaeological settlements, as well as the continuity and changes there in different temporalities. The work pleads for adopting fruitful theoretical frameworks to understand periodisation and nature of material cultures of Odisha. In a sense this is the first work which tries to construct the past of early farming and early historical cultures of Odisha.