Discerning Palates of the Past: An Ethnoarchaeological Study of Crop Cultivation and Plant Usage in India

by Seetha Narahari Reddy

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781879621374
Publisher:	Berghahn Books
Publication date:	04/01/2003
Series:	International Monographs in Prehistory: Ethnoarchaeology Series , #5
Pages:	175
Product dimensions:	8.50(w) x 11.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Seetha Narahari Reddy is a Principal Investigator with Reddy Anthropology Consulting.

Table of Contents

List of Figures
List of Tables
Acknowledgments

Chapter 1. Plants, Past and Present: An Introduction
Chapter 2. Archaeological Context and the Scope of Inquiry
Chapter 3. The Living Past: Ethnographic Crop Processing Studies
Chapter 4. The Search for Patterns: Ethnographic Modeling and Archaeological Relevance
Chapter 5. Going Beyond Carbonized Seed Lists: Paleoethnobotanical Research
Chapter 6. If the Threshing Floor Could Talk: Testing the Ethnographic Models
Chapter 7. Modeling Animal Diet and Fodder Acquisition
Chapter 8. Conclusion: Discerning Palates, Plant Usage and Subsistence

Glossary
References

Editorial Reviews

 

From the Publisher