With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Steven Weber will analyze botanical material from the archaeological site of Harappa. At about 2600 BC, a highly organized economically centralized and culturally integrated civilization emerged along the floodplains of the ancient Indus and Saraswati rivers in South Asia. Large, well planned and walled cities like Harappa evolved from independent village farming communities and an urban society emerged as the result of both a successful food producing economy the control of several trade routes. By the beginning of the second millennium BC, this period of integration and centralization came to an end. With disruptions in trading networks and food supply, distinct local cultures once again began to dominate the region. The goal of this research is to examine, on a micro level, the relationship between this cultural change and subsistence strategy. Dr. Weber will focus on the site of Harappa which because of its size, length of occupation (ca. 3300-1900 BC), large horizontal exposures and high quality of organic preservation make it ideal for such a study. During past and ongoing excavation, particular attention has been paid to the recovery of organic remains including charcoal and seeds from wild and domesticated food plants.
The primary objective of the project will be to determine what shifts in plant occurrence, use and resulting agricultural strategy occurred at Harappa and how these relate to other indications of culture change. The principal focus will be on seeds and other identifiable plant parts recovered from the soil through flotation. The variation in the types of plants recovered, their distribution and their abundance in a given sample can be attributed to a number of natural and cultural processes. Using information about the stratigraphic, architectural and artifactual contexts of recovery, together with proven methods of quantitative analysis, plant occurrence will be explained and a model for the evolution of plant use at Harappa constructed. Because of the highly organized and standardized nature of the settlements and artifacts of the Indus Civilization, models drawn from Harappa data should be applicable at other sites within this region.
