The 4.2-kiloyear event has been described as a global megadrought that transformed multiple Bronz... more The 4.2-kiloyear event has been described as a global megadrought that transformed multiple Bronze Age complex societies, including the Indus Civilization, located in a sensitive transition zone with a bimodal (summer and winter) rainfall regime. Here we reconstruct changes in summer and winter rainfall from trace elements and oxygen, carbon, and calcium isotopes of a speleothem from Dharamjali Cave in the Himalaya spanning 4.2-3.1 thousand years ago. We find a 230-year period of increased summer and winter drought frequency between 4.2 and 3.97 thousand years ago, with multi-decadal aridity events centered on 4.19, 4.11, and 4.02 thousand years ago. The sub-annually resolved record puts seasonal variability on a human decision-making timescale, and shows that repeated intensely dry periods spanned multiple generations. The record highlights the deficits in winter and summer rainfall during the urban phase of the Indus Civilization, which prompted adaptation through flexible, selfreliant, and drought-resistant agricultural strategies.
Presentation for 'International Open Workshop: Socio-Environmental Dynamics over the Last 15,... more Presentation for 'International Open Workshop: Socio-Environmental Dynamics over the Last 15,000 Years: The Creation of Landscapes VI', session #11 'Social resilience to climate changes with perspectives on the past 5000 years' at Kiel University, Germany (11-16 March 2019). Slides: https://andros-spica.github.io/IOW-Angourakis-et-al-2019/
The Quaternary sediments and landscapes of the plains of northwestern Haryana and ancient settlem... more The Quaternary sediments and landscapes of the plains of northwestern Haryana and ancient settlement mounds distributed across them have great potential to reveal the history of the evolution and disappearance of palaeorivers, their relationship to the Indus Civilization and early historic periods in NW India. There are numerous palaeochannels in Haryana, and their distribution and burial in the subsurface creates difficulties for accessing the archives and proxies necessary for developing insight into the timing of river flow and shift, and its relationship to settled populations. This paper investigates the deep and shallow subsurface sedimentary lithology of an area around Sirsa that is close to the course of the modern Ghagghar River. The paper presents additional age constraints provided by dates from the site of Rakhigarhi and examines a sedimentary substrate of a new archaeological mound situated on the palaeochannel identified at a mound near Dhir village. New AMS radiocarbo...
This article examine the settlement pattern on the margin of Thar Desert. The role of Palaeo-Chan... more This article examine the settlement pattern on the margin of Thar Desert. The role of Palaeo-Channels to flourished the Harappan settlement in such a desert climate. How these Palaeo-Channel played a significant role to flourished Harappan settlements.
This paper presents a review of the application of phytolith analysis to the archaeology of the I... more This paper presents a review of the application of phytolith analysis to the archaeology of the Indus Civilisation (c. 4000-1300 BCE) of South Asia. Phytoliths are microscopic silica casts of plant cells formed during the life of the plant through the uptake of monosilicic acid from groundwater. The phytolith studies that have thus far been carried out on Indus settlement sites are reviewed, and the range of issues to which phytolith analysis has been applied to Indus archaeology are also outlined here. This paper argues that phytolith analysis holds great potential for gaining alternative views on age-old archaeological questions relating to the Indus Civilisation. It concludes that although understudied at the moment, there is much to be gained by employing phytolith analysis systematically during archaeological studies in this region and time period.
The 4.2-kiloyear event has been described as a global megadrought that transformed multiple Bronz... more The 4.2-kiloyear event has been described as a global megadrought that transformed multiple Bronze Age complex societies, including the Indus Civilization, located in a sensitive transition zone with a bimodal (summer and winter) rainfall regime. Here we reconstruct changes in summer and winter rainfall from trace elements and oxygen, carbon, and calcium isotopes of a speleothem from Dharamjali Cave in the Himalaya spanning 4.2-3.1 thousand years ago. We find a 230-year period of increased summer and winter drought frequency between 4.2 and 3.97 thousand years ago, with multi-decadal aridity events centered on 4.19, 4.11, and 4.02 thousand years ago. The sub-annually resolved record puts seasonal variability on a human decision-making timescale, and shows that repeated intensely dry periods spanned multiple generations. The record highlights the deficits in winter and summer rainfall during the urban phase of the Indus Civilization, which prompted adaptation through flexible, selfreliant, and drought-resistant agricultural strategies.
Presentation for 'International Open Workshop: Socio-Environmental Dynamics over the Last 15,... more Presentation for 'International Open Workshop: Socio-Environmental Dynamics over the Last 15,000 Years: The Creation of Landscapes VI', session #11 'Social resilience to climate changes with perspectives on the past 5000 years' at Kiel University, Germany (11-16 March 2019). Slides: https://andros-spica.github.io/IOW-Angourakis-et-al-2019/
The Quaternary sediments and landscapes of the plains of northwestern Haryana and ancient settlem... more The Quaternary sediments and landscapes of the plains of northwestern Haryana and ancient settlement mounds distributed across them have great potential to reveal the history of the evolution and disappearance of palaeorivers, their relationship to the Indus Civilization and early historic periods in NW India. There are numerous palaeochannels in Haryana, and their distribution and burial in the subsurface creates difficulties for accessing the archives and proxies necessary for developing insight into the timing of river flow and shift, and its relationship to settled populations. This paper investigates the deep and shallow subsurface sedimentary lithology of an area around Sirsa that is close to the course of the modern Ghagghar River. The paper presents additional age constraints provided by dates from the site of Rakhigarhi and examines a sedimentary substrate of a new archaeological mound situated on the palaeochannel identified at a mound near Dhir village. New AMS radiocarbo...
This article examine the settlement pattern on the margin of Thar Desert. The role of Palaeo-Chan... more This article examine the settlement pattern on the margin of Thar Desert. The role of Palaeo-Channels to flourished the Harappan settlement in such a desert climate. How these Palaeo-Channel played a significant role to flourished Harappan settlements.
This paper presents a review of the application of phytolith analysis to the archaeology of the I... more This paper presents a review of the application of phytolith analysis to the archaeology of the Indus Civilisation (c. 4000-1300 BCE) of South Asia. Phytoliths are microscopic silica casts of plant cells formed during the life of the plant through the uptake of monosilicic acid from groundwater. The phytolith studies that have thus far been carried out on Indus settlement sites are reviewed, and the range of issues to which phytolith analysis has been applied to Indus archaeology are also outlined here. This paper argues that phytolith analysis holds great potential for gaining alternative views on age-old archaeological questions relating to the Indus Civilisation. It concludes that although understudied at the moment, there is much to be gained by employing phytolith analysis systematically during archaeological studies in this region and time period.
Archaeological survey data plays a fundamental role in studies of long-term socio-cultural change... more Archaeological survey data plays a fundamental role in studies of long-term socio-cultural change, particularly those that examine the emergence of social complexity and urbanism. Re-evaluating survey datasets reveals lacunae in survey coverage, encourages the reconsideration of existing interpretations, and makes it possible to integrate the results of multiple projects into large scale analyses that address a broad range of research questions. This paper re-evaluates settlement site location reports that relate to the major phases of the Indus civilisation, whose Mature Harappan period (c. 2600-1900 B.C.) is characterised by numerous village settlements and a small number of larger urban centres. By the end of the Mature Harappan period, people appear to have left these cities, and a de-nucleated pattern of settlement is evident in the subsequent Late Harappan period. Survey data from the plains of northwest India are key to understanding this process of de-urbanisation, as it has...
This research was carried out as part of the TwoRains project which is funded by the European Res... more This research was carried out as part of the TwoRains project which is funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no 648609).
The upper Indus River basin is characterized by biseasonal heavy precipitation falling on the foo... more The upper Indus River basin is characterized by biseasonal heavy precipitation falling on the foothills of major mountain ranges (Hindu Kush, Karakorm, Himalayas). Numerical studies have confirmed the importance of topography for the triggering of precipitation and investigated the processes responsible for specific events, but a systematic and cross-seasonal analysis has yet to be conducted. Using ERA5 reanalysis data and statistical methods, we show that more than 80% of the precipitation variability is explained by southerly moisture transport at 850 and 700 hPa, along the Himalayan foothills. We conclude that most of the precipitation is generated by the forced uplift of a cross-barrier flow. This process explains both wet seasons, despite different synoptic conditions, but is more important in winter. The precipitation signal is decomposed into the contribution of each altitude and each variable (wind and moisture), which exhibit different seasonality. The winter wet season is ...
Throughout the mid-late third millennium BC, the Indus Civilisation stretched across the plains o... more Throughout the mid-late third millennium BC, the Indus Civilisation stretched across the plains of north-western South Asia. Over much of this region, rainfall is low, variable and vulnerable to shifts in the Indian Summer Monsoon. Several palaeoclimate proxy records suggest an abrupt decline in monsoon rainfall occurred across the region c.2200-2000 BC. This was probably associated with the global 4.2 ka event and occurred just before the Indus urban centres began to decline.
However, did this shift have any impact on Indus Civilisation settlements? This question has long been debated, but progress has been hampered by a lack of suitable evidence, including high-resolution palaeoclimatic records that can be spatially and temporally linked to the archaeological evidence base.
This project seeks to address this lacuna by generating local-scale isotopic records of monsoon rainfall from four Indus Civilisation settlements. These are oxygen isotope records derived from faunal tooth enamel and faunal bone phosphate. The teeth have been intra-sampled to generate seasonally-resolved records of rainfall patterns, while the bone phosphate provides complementary longer-term average records. Together, these data provide the first local-scale climate records available from Indus sites and as such provide valuable insights for both palaeoclimatologists and archaeologists into the impacts of a major global climate event at a local, human scale.
Here, we present the results from all four sites, which span a range of rainfall zones. Combined with the archaeological evidence, archaeobotanical data, and new isotopic analyses of crop water availability from these same sites, our results present an important new opportunity to investigate the relationship between climatic variability, agricultural viability and social processes of change in the Indus world.
South Asia's north-western plains include vast semi-arid to arid zones. During the third millenni... more South Asia's north-western plains include vast semi-arid to arid zones. During the third millennium BC, many of these were occupied by populations associated with the Indus Civilisation, which stretched across the Indus floodplains, around the Thar Desert's fringe and into semi-arid Haryana.
The inhabitants of Indus settlements employed a variety of agricultural strategies to exploit these often challenging environments. Populations chose different crops according to local conditions, and although the details remain elusive, some forms of water management were almost certainly employed.
However, c.2200-2000 BC, an abrupt rainfall decline occurred, probably associated with the global '4.2 ka event'. Superimposed on an underlying trend of decreasing and increasingly variable monsoon rainfall, this undoubtedly presented new, possibly serious agricultural challenges for many Indus populations.
How successfully were Indus settlements able to adapt to this drying and increasingly variable climate? Were they resilient, or perhaps able to adjust? Or did these changes undermine agricultural viability, perhaps contributing to the Indus urban centres' decline from c.2000 BC?
We use a novel approach–stable carbon isotope analysis of crop remains–to address these questions at several settlement sites. Using this method, we have directly tested the water status of Indus crops, before and after the 4.2 ka event. Matched with climatic and archaeobotanical data from the same sites, this has allowed us to test, on a site-specific basis, whether a drying climate led to increasing crop water stress, and also to evaluate the evidence for adaptive responses such as altered crop choices or increased water management.
This paper presents the results from all seven sites. These results do not suggest a simple story of climatic stress, and we hope to offer a thought-provoking new perspective on the capacity of settlements across a range of rainfall zones to cope with the climatic challenges they faced.
Why might societies adopt new crops or change their cropping patterns? Climate change is one of s... more Why might societies adopt new crops or change their cropping patterns? Climate change is one of several possible drivers, but its role in crop exchange has rarely been empirically tested and its importance relative to other factors, particularly cultural factors, remains controversial. As part of the Food Globalisation in Prehistory project, two isotopic studies have aimed to directly test the relationship between climate change and crop movement in particular contexts. One focuses on the Hexi Corridor, which is one of the main routes by which crops may have traveled between China and Central Asia. The other focuses on the Indus region in northern South Asia, where climate change has been invoked in both the spread of African, Eurasian and indigenous millets, and the decline of the Indus Civilization. In both cases, we have aimed to generate focused, archaeologically-relevant climatic data which have the capacity to provide a robust empirical foundation for testing the relationship between climate change and crop movement. In so doing, we hope not only to further our understanding of the possible role of climate in these two key locations, but to demonstrate new approaches and techniques with the potential for much broader application.
Archaeological interpretations often depend on inferential reasoning, and ethnoarchaeological
res... more Archaeological interpretations often depend on inferential reasoning, and ethnoarchaeological research can be used as a valuable tool to build stronger discussions related to material culture patterning, especially concerning prehistoric social and technological theories. Ethnoarchaeological research can be applied to several aspects of ceramic production, such as the investigation of manufacturing techniques and technology, producers and craft specialisation, the role of producers within societies, castes or sub-castes, the nature of producer identity and religious affiliation, and the structure of regional and village-based ceramic production. This paper presents an ethnoarchaeological study of the Kumhars potter caste in modern Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, which was carried out as part of my PhD research into Indus Civilisation ceramic traditions. After providing a brief overview of the methods adopted and the five families of Kumhars potters interviewed for this project, this paper will focus on the preliminary results of the ethnographic study, touching upon (1) tools and resilience of manufacturing techniques; (2) regional network of crafters; (3) vernacular knowledge of landscape and clay sources; and (4) the relevance of such observations on archaeological interpretations.
This paper explores the historical inundation of the city of Dera Ghazi Kkan (Punjab, Pakistan) i... more This paper explores the historical inundation of the city of Dera Ghazi Kkan (Punjab, Pakistan) in 1909. The rich documentation about this episode available-including historic news reports, books and maps-is used to reconstruct the historical dynamics between an urban settlement and the river morphodynamics in the Indus alluvial plain. Map and document-based historical regressive analysis is complemented with the examination of images obtained through different Remote Sensing techniques, including the use of new algorithms specifically developed for the study of topography and seasonal water availability which make possible to assess long-term changes in the Indus River basin. This case of study provides an opportunity to examine: (1) how historical hydrological dynamics are reflected in RS produced images; (2) the implications of river morphodynamics in the interpretation of settlement patterning; and (3) the documented socio-political responses to such geomorphological change. The results of this analysis are used to consider the long-term dynamics that have influenced the archaeo/cultural landscapes of the Indus River basin. This assessment provides critical insights for: (1) understanding aspects of the formation, preservation of representation of the archaeological record; (2) identifying traces of morphodynamics and their possible impact over the cultural heritage; and (3) offering insights into the role that recent historical documents can have in the interpretation of RS materials. This paper should be read in conjunction with the paper by Cameron Petrie et al. in the same issue of Geosciences, which explores the Survey of India 1" to 1-mile map series and outlines methods for using these historical maps for research on historical landscapes and settlement distribution.
A range of data sources are now used to support the process of archaeological prospection, includ... more A range of data sources are now used to support the process of archaeological prospection, including remote sensed imagery, spy satellite photographs and aerial photographs. This paper advocates the value and importance of a hitherto under-utilised historical mapping resource-the Survey of India 1" to 1-mile map series, which was based on surveys started in the mid-late nineteenth century, and published progressively from the early twentieth century AD. These maps present a systematic documentation of the topography of the British dominions in the South Asian Subcontinent. Incidentally, they also documented the locations, the height and area of thousands of elevated mounds that were visible in the landscape at the time that the surveys were carried out, but have typically since been either damaged or destroyed by the expansion of irrigation agriculture and urbanism. Subsequent reanalysis has revealed that many of these mounds were actually the remains of ancient settlements. The digitisation and analysis of these historic maps thus creates a unique opportunity for gaining insight into the landscape archaeology of South Asia. This paper reviews the context within which these historical maps were created, presents a method for georeferencing them, and reviews the symbology that was used to represent elevated mound features that have the potential to be archaeological sites. This paper should be read in conjunction with the paper by Arnau Garcia et al. in the same issue of Geosciences, which implements a research programme combining historical maps and a range of remote sensing approaches to reconstruct historical landscape dynamics in the Indus River Basin.
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However, did this shift have any impact on Indus Civilisation settlements? This question has long been debated, but progress has been hampered by a lack of suitable evidence, including high-resolution palaeoclimatic records that can be spatially and temporally linked to the archaeological evidence base.
This project seeks to address this lacuna by generating local-scale isotopic records of monsoon rainfall from four Indus Civilisation settlements. These are oxygen isotope records derived from faunal tooth enamel and faunal bone phosphate. The teeth have been intra-sampled to generate seasonally-resolved records of rainfall patterns, while the bone phosphate provides complementary longer-term average records. Together, these data provide the first local-scale climate records available from Indus sites and as such provide valuable insights for both palaeoclimatologists and archaeologists into the impacts of a major global climate event at a local, human scale.
Here, we present the results from all four sites, which span a range of rainfall zones. Combined with the archaeological evidence, archaeobotanical data, and new isotopic analyses of crop water availability from these same sites, our results present an important new opportunity to investigate the relationship between climatic variability, agricultural viability and social processes of change in the Indus world.
The inhabitants of Indus settlements employed a variety of agricultural strategies to exploit these often challenging environments. Populations chose different crops according to local conditions, and although the details remain elusive, some forms of water management were almost certainly employed.
However, c.2200-2000 BC, an abrupt rainfall decline occurred, probably associated with the global '4.2 ka event'. Superimposed on an underlying trend of decreasing and increasingly variable monsoon rainfall, this undoubtedly presented new, possibly serious agricultural challenges for many Indus populations.
How successfully were Indus settlements able to adapt to this drying and increasingly variable climate? Were they resilient, or perhaps able to adjust? Or did these changes undermine agricultural viability, perhaps contributing to the Indus urban centres' decline from c.2000 BC?
We use a novel approach–stable carbon isotope analysis of crop remains–to address these questions at several settlement sites. Using this method, we have directly tested the water status of Indus crops, before and after the 4.2 ka event. Matched with climatic and archaeobotanical data from the same sites, this has allowed us to test, on a site-specific basis, whether a drying climate led to increasing crop water stress, and also to evaluate the evidence for adaptive responses such as altered crop choices or increased water management.
This paper presents the results from all seven sites. These results do not suggest a simple story of climatic stress, and we hope to offer a thought-provoking new perspective on the capacity of settlements across a range of rainfall zones to cope with the climatic challenges they faced.
research can be used as a valuable tool to build stronger discussions related to material culture
patterning, especially concerning prehistoric social and technological theories.
Ethnoarchaeological research can be applied to several aspects of ceramic production, such as the
investigation of manufacturing techniques and technology, producers and craft specialisation, the
role of producers within societies, castes or sub-castes, the nature of producer identity and
religious affiliation, and the structure of regional and village-based ceramic production. This paper
presents an ethnoarchaeological study of the Kumhars potter caste in modern Haryana and Uttar
Pradesh, which was carried out as part of my PhD research into Indus Civilisation ceramic
traditions.
After providing a brief overview of the methods adopted and the five families of Kumhars potters
interviewed for this project, this paper will focus on the preliminary results of the ethnographic
study, touching upon (1) tools and resilience of manufacturing techniques; (2) regional network of
crafters; (3) vernacular knowledge of landscape and clay sources; and (4) the relevance of such
observations on archaeological interpretations.