of a Jain temples. 1000BCE to 300BCE: the findings suggest that a Northern Black Polished Ware (NBPW) culture existed at the mosque site between 1000 BCE and 300 BCE. A round signet with a legend in Ashokan Brahmi, terracotta figurines of female deities with archaic features, beads of terracotta and glass, wheels and fragments of votive tanks have been found. Shunga Period. 200 BC: Typical terracotta mother goddess, human and animal figurines, beads, hairpins, pottery (includes black slipped, red and grey wares), and stone and brick structures of the Shunga period have been found. Kushan period. 100–300 CE: terracotta human and animal figurines, fragments of votive tanks, beads, bangle fragments, ceramics with red ware and large-sized structures running into twenty-two courses have been found from this level. Gupta era (320–600 CE) and post-Gupta era: typical terracotta figurines, a copper coin with the legend Sri Chandra (Gupta), and illustrative potsherds of the Gupta period have been found. A circular brick shrine with an entrance from the east and a provision for a water-chute on the northern wall have also been found. 11th to 12th century CE: a huge structure of almost fifty metres in north–south orientation have been found on this level. Only four of the fifty pillar bases belong to this level. Above this lay a structure with at least three structural phases which had a huge pillared hall. Animal remains Earlier excavations had unearthed animal bones and even human remains. According to historian Irfan Habib, the presence of animal bones meant that it was a residential area (and not a shrine) inhabited not necessarily by a non-vegetarian community and that it was in that Muslim habitat that a mosque was raised in 1528 or thereafter. The ASI report mentions the bones, but does not explain how they came to be there. Muslim graves Two Muslim graves were also recovered in the excavation, as reported in the Outlook weekly. While the ASI videographed and photographed the graves on 22 April, it did not perform a detailed analysis of them. The skeletons found at the site were not sent for carbon-dating, neither were the graves measured. Anirudha Srivastava, a former ASI archaeologist, said that in some trenches, some graves, terracotta and lime mortar and surkhi were discovered which also indicated Muslim habitation. It was surmised, also, that some mosque existed on the site and that Babri was built on the site