Vasant Shinde

Evidence for Patterns of Selective Urban Migration in the Greater Indus Valley (2600- 1900 BC): A Lead and Strontium Isotope Mortuary Analysis

Just as modern nation-states struggle to manage the cultural and economic impacts of migration, ancient civilizations dealt with similar external pressures and set policies to regulate people’s movements. In one of the earliest urban societies, the Indus Civilization, mechanisms linking city populations to hinterland groups remain enigmatic in the absence of written documents. However, isotopic data from human tooth enamel associated with Harappa Phase (2600-1900 BC) cemetery burials at Harappa (Pakistan) and Farmana (India) provide individual biogeochemical life histories of migration. Strontium and lead isotope ratios allow us to reinterpret the Indus tradition of cemetery inhumation as part of a specific and highly regulated institution of migration. Intra-individual isotopic shifts are consistent with immigration from resource-rich hinterlands during childhood. Furthermore, mortuary populations formed over hundreds of years and composed almost entirely of first-generation immigrants suggest that inhumation was the final step in a process linking certain urban Indus communities to diverse hinterland groups. Additional multi disciplinary analyses are warranted to confirm inferred patterns of Indus mobility, but the available isotopic data suggest that efforts to classify and regulate human movement in the ancient Indus region likely helped structure socioeconomic integration across an ethnically diverse landscape.

Rediscovery of Indian dwarf wheat (Triticum aestivum L. ssp. sphaerococcum (Perc.) MK.) an ancient crop of the Indian subcontinent

Indian dwarf wheat (Triticum aestivum L. ssp. sphaerococcum (Perc.) Mac Key, synonym: T. sphaerococcum Perc.) is endemic to southern Pakistan and northwestern India. It was one of the main winter crops grown by ancient Indian cultures. However, it disappeared from the record during the early twentieth century, especially after the Green Revolution brought modern wheat varieties into India and Pakistan. Whether or not Indian dwarf wheat is presently cultivated has been unclear. Here we report on the rediscovery of the cultivation of this wheat in northern Karnataka and southern Maharashtra in India. Molecular genetic analysis of the chloroplast DNA of the two specimens collected at location 3 revealed that both samples have a unique haplotype that is specific to Indian dwarf wheat. We found this wheat at three locations in 2010, but at only one of the three locations in 2011. Therefore, the future survival of this subspecies is uncertain. Further ethnobotanical research is urgently needed to conserve this unique genetic resource for the future.

Archaeological and anthropological studies on the Harappan cemetery of Rakhigarhi, India

An insufficient number of archaeological surveys has been carried out to date on Harappan Civilization cemeteries. One case in point is the necropolis at Rakhigarhi site (Haryana, India), one of the largest cities of the Harappan Civilization, where most burials within the cemetery remained uninvestigated. Over the course of the past three seasons (2013 to 2016), we therefore conducted excavations in an attempt to remedy this data shortfall. In brief, we found different kinds of graves co-existing within the Rakhigarhi cemetery in varying proportions. Primary interment was most common, followed by the use of secondary, symbolic, and unused (empty) graves. Within the first category, the atypical burials appear to have been elaborately prepared. Prone-positioned internments also attracted our attention. Since those individuals are not likely to have been social deviants, it is necessary to reconsider our pre-conceptions about such prone-position burials in archaeology, at least in the context of the Harappan Civilization. The data presented in this report, albeit insufficient to provide a complete understanding of Harappan Civilization cemeteries, nevertheless does present new and significant information on the mortuary practices and anthropological features at that time. Indeed, the range of different kinds of burials at the Rakhigarhi cemetery do appear indicative of the differences in mortuary rituals seen within Harappan societies, therefore providing a vivid glimpse of how these people respected their dead.

The Genomic Formation of South and Central Asia

The genetic formation of Central and South Asian populations has been unclear because of an absence of ancient DNA. To address this gap, we generated genome-wide data from 362 ancient individuals, including the first from eastern Iran, Turan (Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan), Bronze Age Kazakhstan, and South Asia. Our data reveal a complex set of genetic sources that ultimately combined to form the ancestry of South Asians today. We document a southward spread of genetic ancestry from the Eurasian Steppe, correlating with the archaeologically known expansion of pastoralist sites from the Steppe to Turan in the Middle Bronze Age (2300-1500 BCE). These Steppe communities mixed genetically with peoples of the Bactria Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC) whom they encountered in Turan (primarily descendants of earlier agriculturalists of Iran), but there is no evidence that the main BMAC population contributed genetically to later South Asians. Instead, Steppe communities integrated farther south throughout the 2nd millennium BCE, and we show that they mixed with a more southern population that we document at multiple sites as outlier individuals exhibiting a distinctive mixture of ancestry related to Iranian agriculturalists and South Asian hunter-gathers. We call this group Indus Periphery because they were found at sites in cultural contact with the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) and along its northern fringe, and also because they were genetically similar to post-IVC groups in the Swat Valley of Pakistan. By co-analyzing ancient DNA and genomic data from diverse present-day South Asians, we show that Indus Periphery-related people are the single most important source of ancestry in South Asia—consistent with the idea that the Indus Periphery individuals are providing us with the first direct look at the ancestry of peoples of the IVC—and we develop a model for the formation of present-day South Asians in terms of the temporally and geographically proximate sources of Indus Periphery-related, Steppe, and local South Asian hunter-gatherer-related ancestry. Our results show how ancestry from the Steppe genetically linked Europe and South Asia in the Bronze Age, and identifies the populations that almost certainly were responsible for spreading Indo-European languages across much of Eurasia. One Sentence Summary Genome wide ancient DNA from 357 individuals from Central and South Asia sheds new light on the spread of Indo-European languages and parallels between the genetic history of two sub-continents, Europe and South Asia.

A young couple's grave found in the Rakhigarhi cemetery of the Harappan Civilization

The Harappan Civilization, one of the earliest complex societies in the world, flourished on the Indian subcontinent. Although many additional Harappan settlements and cemeteries have been discovered and investigated, no coupled burials at Harappan cemeteries have been reported to date. In 2013–2016, we excavated the cemetery of the Rakhigarhi site (Haryana), the largest city of the Harappan Civilization. At the site, we found a grave that turned out to be a coupled (joint) burial of the primary type. This report is the first anthropologically confirmed case of coupled burial from a Harappan cemetery.

A Pilot Use-Wear Study of Lithic Tools from the Aceramic Phase at Bagor, Rajasthan, India

Stone tools are one of the major sources of information about prehistoric life. Microscopic studies of wear patterns on the edges of these tools using incident light microscopes and Scanning Electron Microscopes (SEM) coupled with Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS) have proved to be effective methods of determining stone tool function. Although use-wear analyses have been used by archaeologists to reconstruct the life of stone tool using societies in different parts of the world, little research using light microscopes and SEM in analyzing stone tool function has been carried out in India. A pilot study was undertaken by the authors to examine the scope and application of use-wear studies (using both light microscopy and ESEM coupled with EDS) in an Indian Mesolithic context. The principal objectives of this study were to investigate the activities performed at the site of Bagor, Rajasthan, India as reflected by the lithic artifacts, and to assess the relationship between tool morphology and function. Use-wear analysis of the microliths and scrapers from Bagor has given us interesting insights into prehistoric life in this part of India. The preliminary results of the study show that the potential wealth of information that can be acquired from the use-wear based research can hugely benefit Indian archaeology, and that Indian archaeologists need to incorporate scientific methods like use-wear analysis to understand the past better.

South Indian Chalcolithic

A gradual process of development speeded by favorable climatic changes, innovations, and increased cultural contacts led to the development of the Chalcolithic cultures of the Deccan between 4000-2700 b.p. With the decline of the Harappan civilization in nearby Gujarat, the people and their influence moved southward into the Deccan, where they merged with existing Neolithic and Chalcolithic communities and established rural economies based on agriculture and pastoralism. In Central India and Deccan, these early farming communities continued in unbroken succession up to 2700 b.p., with slight regional variations and development in the ceramic and cultural assemblage. The reasons behind the subsequent desertion of most of these settlements by the end of the 2d millennium or as in the case of the Jorwe Culture by 2700 b.p. is to date unknown, but warfare with the Iron Age Megalithic people is a distinct possibility.

Central Indian Chalcolithic

A gradual process of development speeded by favorable climatic changes and increased cultural contacts led to the development of the Chalcolithic cultures of Central India between 5000–3200 B.P. Existing Neolithic and Chalcolithic communities with rural economies based on agriculture and pastoralism gradually developed first into incipient chiefdom-based societies and later after 4400 B.P. with Harappan contact flourished and developed into chiefdom societies centered on regional centers. In Central India, these early farming communities continued in unbroken succession up to 3200 B.P., with slight regional variations and development in the ceramic and cultural assemblage. The reasons behind the subsequent desertion of most of these settlements by the end of the 2nd millennium is unknown, and a sterile layer separates this period from the later Early Historic period.