A Companion to South Asia in the Past

Gwen Robbins Schug is an Associate Professor of biological anthropology at Appalachian State University (Boone, NC). She is the author of Bioarchaeology and Climate Change: A View from South Asian Prehistory (2011). Her research has been widely published in academic journals and covered in Science Magazine, National Geographic, Science Daily, The New Yorker Magazine, and The New York Times. Subhash Walimbe was Professor of biological anthropology at Deccan College Post-Graduate Research Institute and the Head of Department at Pune University before retiring in 2010. He is the author of nine books and more than 80 research articles on South Asian prehistory. His research has been funded by National Geographic, Smithsonian Institution, and the Ford Foundation, among others. He serves on the advisory committee to several Indian Universities and the Government of India research establishments.

Notes on Contributors x


Acknowledgments xvii


Formal Dedication xviii
V.N. Misra


Foreword xx
Angela R. Lieverse


Maps xxvi


1 Introduction 1
Gwen Robbins Schug and Subhash R. Walimbe


Part I Paleoanthropology in South Asia 11


2 Mammalian Paleodiversity and Ecology of Siwalik Primates in India and Nepal 13
Rajan Gaur


3 A Decade of Paleoanthropology in the Indian Subcontinent (2005–2015) 32
Parth R. Chauhan


4 Archaic Genomes and the Peopling of South Asia 51
Mark Stoneking


5 Out of Africa and into South Asia: The Evidence from Paleolithic Archaeology 60
Ravi Korisettar


6 Hominin Fossil Remains from the Narmada Valley 72
A.R. Sankhyan


7 Mesolithic Foragers of the Ganges Plain and Adjoining Hilly Regions of the Vindhyas 86
J.N. Pal


8 Mesolithic Foragers of the Ganges Plain: Pathology, Stature, and Subsistence 101
John R. Lukacs


Part II Middle Holocene Farmers and Urban Dwellers 125


9 Current Perspectives on the Harappan Civilization 127
Vasant Shinde


10 Excavations at Harappa, 1986–2010: New Insights on the Indus Civilization and Harappan Burial Traditions 145
J.M. Kenoyer and R.H. Meadow


11 Bioarchaeology of the Indus Valley Civilization: Biological Affinities, Paleopathology, and Chemical Analyses 169
Nancy C. Lovell


12 More than Origins: Refining Migration in the Indus Civilization 187
Benjamin Valentine


13 Aryans and the Indus Civilization: Archaeological, Skeletal, and Molecular Evidence 205
Michel Danino


14 The Ahar Culture and Others: Social Spectrums of the Mewar Plain 225
Teresa P. Raczek


15 The Archaeology of the Late Holocene on the Deccan Plateau (The Deccan Chalcolithic) 240
Prabodh Shirvalkar and Esha Prasad


16 The Center Cannot Hold: A Bioarchaeological Perspective on Environmental Crisis in the Second Millennium bce, South Asia 255
Gwen Robbins Schug and Kelly Elaine Blevins


17 The “Gandhara Grave Culture”: New Perspectives on Protohistoric Cemeteries in Northern and Northwestern Pakistan 274
Muhammad Zahir


Part III Historic Archaeology: Monuments and Meaning 295


18 Early Iron Age Megalith Builders of Vidarbha: A Historical View 297
P.S. Joshi


19 Situating Iron Age Monuments in South India: A Textual and Ethnographic Approach 310
K. Rajan


20 A Review of Early Historic Urbanization in India 319
Reshma Sawant and Gurudas Shete


21 Historical and Medieval Period Archaeology 332
Monica L. Smith


22 The Transition to Agricultural Production in India: South Asian Entanglements of Domestication 344
Charlene A. Murphy and Dorian Q. Fuller


23 From Millet to Rice (and Back Again?): Cuisine, Cultivation, and Health in Southern India 358
Kathleen D. Morrison


24 Death and Burial among Two Ancient High]Altitude Communities of Nepal 374
Mark Aldenderfer and Jacqueline T. Eng


Part IV South Asia in Retrospect 399


25 Prehistoric Archaeology in Bangladesh: An Overview 401
Shahnaj Husne Jahan


26 Archaeology of Nepal 412
Prakash Darnal


27 The Peopling of Sri Lanka from Prehistoric to Historic Times: Biological and Archaeological Evidence 426
Samanti Kulatilake


28 Theoretical Archaeology in India: An Anthropological Perspective 437
K. Paddayya


29 Moving Forward, Looking Back: The Collective Memory of Indian Anthropology 450
Abhik Ghosh


30 Anthropology and Museums in India 465
Kishor K. Basa


31 Human Skeletal Studies: Changing Trends in Theoretical and Methodological Perspectives 482
Subhash R. Walimbe


32 Where Are They Now? The Human Skeletal Remains from India 496
V. Mushrif-Tripathy, K.S. Chakraborty, and S. Lahiri


Index 534