Evidence for Patterns of Selective Urban Migration in the Greater Indus Valley (2600-1900 BC): A Lead and Strontium Isotope Mortuary Analysis

Abstract

Just as modern nation-states struggle to manage the cultural and economic impacts of migration, ancient civilizations dealt with similar external pressures and set policies to regulate people’s movements. In one of the earliest urban societies, the Indus Civilization, mechanisms linking city populations to hinterland groups remain enigmatic in the absence of written documents. However, isotopic data from human tooth enamel associated with Harappa Phase (2600-1900 BC) cemetery burials at Harappa (Pakistan) and Farmana (India) provide individual biogeochemical life histories of migration. Strontium and lead isotope ratios allow us to reinterpret the Indus tradition of cemetery inhumation as part of a specific and highly regulated institution of migration. Intra-individual isotopic shifts are consistent with immigration from resource-rich hinterlands during childhood. Furthermore, mortuary populations formed over hundreds of years and composed almost entirely of first-generation immigrants suggest that inhumation was the final step in a process linking certain urban Indus communities to diverse hinterland groups. Additional multi disciplinary analyses are warranted to confirm inferred patterns of Indus mobility, but the available isotopic data suggest that efforts to classify and regulate human movement in the ancient Indus region likely helped structure socioeconomic integration across an ethnically diverse landscape.

Patterns of camelid management in Wari Empire reconstructed using multiple stable isotope analysis: evidence from Castillo de Huarmey, northern coast of Peru

“…For Pb, we assayed two soil samples from two mortuary contexts, the mausoleum (A1) and the palatial complex (B1), and two andesite samples (RP1 and RP4) collected in the vicinity of a site. Rock and soil samples were prepared and analyzed following methods described in Valentine et al (2015).…”

Lead (Pb) Isotope Baselines for Studies of Ancient Human Migration and Trade in the Maya Region

“…Lead isotopes can be used to source archaeological cultural materials, such as ceramic components, glazes, metals, and stone, but are particularly useful in that they can be used to source human and animal tooth enamel (and potentially bone), enabling studies of human mobility and trade of faunal materials. A growing number of studies have included isotope ratios of lead as an additional geochemical sourcing technique [21–27]. In the Americas, lead has been tested in only a few studies, such as archaeological human remains from Peru [28], the southwestern United States [29, 30] and Canada [31], and for sourcing minerals and metals, such as glazes, turquoise, and copper in the exchange network that existed between the southwestern United States through Mesoamerica [32–35].…”

20,000 years of societal vulnerability and adaptation to climate change in southwest Asia

“…Archaeobotany and archaeozoology have been widely used for some time, but isotopic analysis of human and animal remains is being increasingly utilized to investigate questions of mobility, diet and the impact of climate change on water availability and use (e.g., Chase, Ajithprasad, Rajesh, Patel, & Sharma, 2014;Chase, Meiggs, Ajithprasad, & Slater, 2014, 2018P. J. Jones, 2018;Kenoyer, Price, & Burton, 2013;Kutterer & Uerpmann, 2012;Riehl, Pustovoytov, Weippert, Klett, & Hole, 2014;Valentine et al, 2015). Residue analysis of ceramics from new excavations, and also museum collections, is also now being attempted (Craig et al, 2013;Gregg, 2010;Gregg, Banning, Gibbs, & Slater, 2009).…”