Series
Volume 5
International Monographs in Prehistory: Ethnoarchaeology Series
Email Newsletters
Sign up for our email newsletters to get customized updates on new Berghahn publications.
Discerning Palates of the Past
An Ethnoarchaeological Study of Crop Cultivation and Plant Usage in India
Seetha Narahari Reddy
175 pages, 69 illus., bibliog., index
ISBN 978-1-87962-137-4 $179.00/£132.00 / Hb / Published (April 2003)
ISBN 978-1-87962-136-7 $59.95/£47.95 / Pb / Published (April 2003)
eISBN 978-1-78920-183-3 eBook
Reviews
Description
This book analyzes the agricultural and pastoral infrastructure of the Mature and Late Harappan cultures (ca. 2500-1700 BC) of northwest India. The economic role of drought-resistant millet crops is reconstructed using ethnographic studies of crop processing, palaeoethnobotany, and carbon isotope analysis. Reddy reveals that simply recovering crop seeds from archaeological contexts does not confirm local crop cultivation, and she suggests that agricultural production of millet crops for human food and for animal fodder may have been economically interwoven in the Harappan civilization. New directions are provided for discerning archaeologically how pastoralism and agriculture may be integrated in complex economic systems.
Seetha Narahari Reddy is a Principal Investigator with Reddy Anthropology Consulting.