Phytoliths and lithics: An alliance of convenience? Performing first comprehensive residue analysis for the artefacts of the Indus Civilisation (original) (raw)
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Phytolith Analysis and the Indus Civilisation: a review
This paper presents a review of the application of phytolith analysis to the archaeology of the Indus Civilisation (c. 4000-1300 BCE) of South Asia. Phytoliths are microscopic silica casts of plant cells formed during the life of the plant through the uptake of monosilicic acid from groundwater. The phytolith studies that have thus far been carried out on Indus settlement sites are reviewed, and the range of issues to which phytolith analysis has been applied to Indus archaeology are also outlined here. This paper argues that phytolith analysis holds great potential for gaining alternative views on age-old archaeological questions relating to the Indus Civilisation. It concludes that although understudied at the moment, there is much to be gained by employing phytolith analysis systematically during archaeological studies in this region and time period.
This paper presents a preliminary study combining macrobotanical and phytolith analyses to explore crop processing at archaeological sites in Haryana and Rajasthan, northwest India. Current understanding of the agricultural strategies in use by populations associated with South Asia's Indus Civilisation (3200-1900 BC) has been derived from a small number of systematic macrobotanical studies focusing on a small number of sites, with little use of multi-proxy analysis. In this study both phytolith and macrobotanical analyses are used to explore the organisation of crop processing at five small Indus settlements with a view to understanding the impact of urban development and decline on village agriculture. The differing preservation potential of the two proxies has allowed for greater insights into the different stages of processing represented at these sites: with macrobotanical remains allowing for more species-level specific analysis, though due to poor chaff presentation the early stages of processing were missed; however these early stages of processing were evident in the less highly resolved but better preserved phytolith remains. The combined analyses suggests that crop processing aims and organisation differed according to the season of cereal growth, contrary to current models of Indus Civilisation labour organisation that suggest change over time. The study shows that the agricultural strategies of these frequently overlooked smaller sites question the simplistic models that have traditionally been assumed for the time period, and that both multi-proxy analysis and rural settlements are deserving of further exploration.
This paper presents a preliminary study combining macrobotanical and phytolith analyses to explore crop processing at archaeological sites in Haryana and Rajasthan, northwest India. Current understanding of the agricultural strategies in use by populations associated with South Asia's Indus Civilisation (3200–1900 BC) has been derived from a small number of systematic macrobotanical studies focusing on a small number of sites, with little use of multi-proxy analysis. In this study both phytolith and macrobotanical analyses are used to explore the organisation of crop processing at five small Indus settlements with a view to understanding the impact of urban development and decline on village agriculture. The differing preservation potential of the two proxies has allowed for greater insights into the different stages of processing represented at these sites: with macrobotanical remains allowing for more species-level specific analysis, though due to poor chaff presentation the early stages of processing were missed; however these early stages of processing were evident in the less highly resolved but better preserved phytolith remains. The combined analyses suggests that crop processing aims and organisation differed according to the season of cereal growth, contrary to current models of Indus Civilisation labour organisation that suggest change over time. The study shows that the agricultural strategies of these frequently overlooked smaller sites question the simplistic models that have traditionally been assumed for the time period, and that both multi-proxy analysis and rural settlements are deserving of further exploration.
The exploitation of lithic resources was an important aspect of prehistoric resource exploitation strategies and adaptation. Research has mostly focused on technological and spatial aspects of lithic factory sites, often overlooking how these sites were integrated within local socioecological dynamics in terms of food acquisition and consumption. The aim of this paper is to study plant consumption at Datrana, a 5000-year-old lithic blade workshop in North Gujarat, India, in order to understand its occupants' subsistence strategies. The results of archaeobotanical, mineralogical and soil pH analyses show that the occupants of this factory site were consuming local crops but not processing them, suggesting that either (a) food was being processed in other areas of the site or (b) it was acquired in a 'ready-to-consume' state from local food-producing communities. This study highlights the integration of a lithic factory site within its surrounding cultural and natural landscape, offering an example of how the inhabitants of a workshop interacted with local communities to acquire food resources.
Recent archaeological examinations include an increasing amount of natural science analyses. They are often carried out by external specialists and their results are often accepted by archaeologists without question. This may lead to incomplete integration of the results into an archaeological context. One of those methods, increasingly employed in the field of archaeology, is phytolith analysis. Phytoliths, microscopic silica bodies from genera-specific plant cells, allow searching for traces of plant material in archaeological contexts where methods based on macroscopic analysis have reached their limits. This paper combines natural science approaches with archaeological data by examining the social life of artefacts via phytolith analyses that can provide data to precisely determine the interpretation and variety of grinding stones, which are often misinterpreted. In this pilot study, the analyses confirmed the macroscopic observations for grinding plant material in some cases, but also opened new areas of study such as mineral-related activities, possible use of wooden implements and the connection between the different archaeological and botanical information. The analysed objects are grinding stones from Monjukli Depe, a small village in modern southern Turkmenistan that was occupied in the Neolithic and Aeneolithic periods. The site was excavated in the 1960s by Soviet archaeologists and restudied since 2010 by a team from the Free University Berlin.
Iranian Archaeology, 2: 21-33. Tehran, 2012
The Indus Civilisation flourished in part of the Indian Subcontinent during the Bronze Age. It was a complex urban civilisation, with a writing system, still undeciphered. It is also famous for its sophisticated handicrafts, painted pottery, stoneware, steatite and semiprecious beads, faience and metalwork, which were traded to long distances across the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea. Nevertheless chipped stone technology and flint artefacts production still represented important aspects of the economic system, especially in connection with specialised craft productions, which led to an intensive exploitation of the flint raw material sources of the Rohri Hills, in Upper Sindh. Here thousands of flint mines were exploited for a mass production of blades and bladelets, which were later transformed into sophisticated micro-drill points in the craft activity areas of the cities, where they are found in association with semiprecious stone bead making workshops. This paper analyses the complexity of the lithic production of the Indus Civilisation. It describes the technology and methods of production of such blades, according to the evidence collected during several years of research carried out in the Rohri Hills. Here, besides the mines, a good number of flint knapping workshops were excavated by the Italo-Pakistani expedition. The analytical study of the lithic assemblages recovered from these excavations and the experimental reproduction of the debitage sequence, favoured the reconstruction of the techniques and the methods of the Indus flint working.
The Published Archaeobotanical Data from the Indus Civilisation, South Asia, c.3200–1500BC
Journal of Open Archaeology Data, 2019
The collection of this dataset of published archaeobotanical data from the Indus Civilisation (c.3200–1500BC) was carried out by the author as part of her doctoral work, and has continued up to October 2017. The dataset represents a systematic collation of all primary published macrobotanical data, regardless of their designation as ‘crop’, ‘fully domesticated’ or ‘wild/weedy’ species. The dataset comprises 63 sites and 339 ‘taxa’ (including less confidently identified elements such as ‘charred seed’). Data is presented as presence/absence due to different sampling, quantification and data presentation practices.
2006
Diverse plant remains recovered from an archaeological site of Chalcolithic-Early Historic age in the Bhairabdanga area of Pakhanna (latitude 23°25'N, longitude 87°23'E), situated on the west bank of the Damodar river, Bankura district, West Bengal, India, include food grains, wood charcoals, and palynomorphs. Radiocarbon dating of the recovered biological remains reveal the age of the site as (3 320 ± 400) to (2 080 ± 80) yr BP. The food grains were identified as Oryza sativa L. and Vigna mungo L, and seeds of Brassica cf. campestris L. were also found; these indicate the agricultural practice and food habits of the ancient people living at Pakhanna from the Chalcolithic to the Early Historic period. Sediments including plant remains have been broadly divided into two zones, considering archaeological findings and radiocarbon dating. Analysis of the plant remains (i.e. wood charcoals and palynomorphs) in addition to cultivated food grains has revealed that a rich vegetation cover existed in this area, with a prevailing tropical and humid climate, comprising the timber-yielding plants Shorea sp., Terminalia sp., and Tamarindus sp., with undergrowths of diverse shrubs and herbs during the Chalcolithic period (zone I) dated (3 320 ± 400) yr BP. Comparatively poorer representation and frequency of plant remains indicate a drier climate during the Early Historic period (zone II) dated as (2 110 ± 340) to (2 080 ± 80) yr BP. Comparisons of the archaeobotanical data recovered from the Chalcolithic and Early Historic period and also a principle components analysis indicate a change in the climate of the area from tropical and humid at (3 320 ± 400) yr BP to tropical and drier conditions at (2 110 ± 340) to (2 080 ± 80) yr BP. The present-day tropical, dry deciduous vegetation of the area suggests that climate change has occurred in the area since the contemporaneous past. The plant remains database has been utilized to reconstruct the settlement pattern of the community living in the site between (3 320 ± 400) and (2 080 ± 80) yr BP. The community settled near the riverbank, practicing cultivation.
Hunter-gatherer plant use in south west Asia: the path to agriculture
Karen Hardy and Lucy Kubiak-Martens (eds.) Wild Harvest: Plants in the Hominin and Pre-Agrarian Human Worlds. Oxbow Books, Oxford, 2016., 2016
This paper focuses on plant use by the last hunter-gatherers in the Levant from the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) to the first experiments with plant cultivation at the beginning of the Holocene. This review of Epipaleolithic and Early Neolithic plant use summarises available archaeobotanical and technological data. Information far the Early Epipalaeolithic, especially from the site of Ohalo II, shows that, from the LGM, humans had access to exceptionally rich plant,food staples that included smallgrained grasses and wild barley (Hordeum spontaneum) and wild wheat (Triticum dicoccoides). Grasses seem to have been the staple plant foods but other plants were also present: wild pulses, acorns, almonds, pistachios, wild olives, fruits, and berries. Grinding and pounding stone tools were in use at this time far processing plant resources. During the Late Epipaleolithic (Natufian) period plant use intensified, as can be seen in the site of Abu Hureyra. The seed assemblage from Abu Hureyra I may have included more than 120 food types comprising possible staples such as the grain of wild rye (Secale spp.) and wheat (Triticum spp.), feather grasses (Stipa and Stipagrostis spp.), club-rush (Scirpus maritimus), Euphrates knotgrass (Polygonum corrigioloides), small-seeded grasses, and wild shrubby chenopods (Atriplex spp. and others). The presence in Natufian siles of tools with glossy edges that were used for harvesting cereals, and the widespread nature of mortars suggest that cereals were a more common food. During the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA), the first experiments with cultivation of morphologically wild cereals, and also probably of legumes, took place. This involved cereals such as wild emmer (T. dicoccoides), wild einkorn (T. boeoticum), wild barley (Hordeum spontaneum) and wild oat (Avena sterilis), and pulses such as rambling vetch (Vicia peregrina) and probably others. Human manipulalion of plant resources opened the path to domestication with the first evidence found during the Early Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (EPPNB). However, the exploitation of wild plants continued to be important far these societies, as is suggested by the admixture of plant exploitation strategies during most of the PPN period and the late establishment of crop 'packages' during the Late PPNB.