What was Cunningham's confusion?

Cunningham’s Confusion were:

(i) Cunningham’s main interest was in the archaeology of the Early Historic and later periods. Cunningham tried to place Harappan seals within the time-frame with which he was familiar.

(ii) He used the accounts left by Chinese Buddhist pilgrims who had visited the subcontinent between the fourth and seventh centuries CE to locate early settlement.

(iii) Cunningham also collected, documented and translated inscriptions found during his surveys. When he excavated sites he tended to recover artefacts that he thought had cultural value.

(iv) A site like Harappa which was not part of the itinerary of the Chinese pilgrims, did not fit very neatly within his framework of investigation. Cunningham did not realize how old Harappa artifacts were.