Punjab's village names are a historical source that nobody has used.
Names ending in -pur, -abad, -garh, -kot and -nagar mark deliberate foundations and often carry a founder's name. Names in -wal, -wala and -ke mark family settlements. Names in -sar and -tal mark water. Names in -bet, -bir and -jhal mark land type. Names in -chak plus a number mark canal colony allotments.
Persian and Arabic elements mark Muslim foundation or Mughal-period naming. Sanskritic elements mark older layers. Got names mark clan settlement.
A systematic analysis of the twelve and a half thousand names in the Punjab village directories would produce a map of settlement history: who founded what, in roughly what period, and where the different layers lie.
The data is published, in the census village directories, and is free.
Nobody has done it. It is a computational project that a competent student could complete in a summer and it would change how the settlement history of the region is understood.
The endings carry the history. Wala and wali mark possession by a person or a group, kalan and khurd mark the larger and smaller of a pair, and chak marks a canal colony allotment.
Pur, garh, kot and abad mark a founding: a town, a fort, a stronghold, a settlement made by somebody who named it.
Nobody has run the analysis. Fifteen thousand names with those endings, counted and mapped, would show where the got settlement is, where the fortified sites were, and where the colonial state made new villages.