What is left behind: Advancing interpretation of pastoral land-use in Harappan Gujarat using herbivore dung to examine biosphere strontium isotope ( 87 Sr/ 86 Sr) variation

Chase, Brad; Meiggs, David; Ajithprasad, P.; Slater, Philip A.

doi:10.1016/j.jas.2018.01.007

Cited by 21 publications

(18 citation statements)

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“…As there are high proportions of adult cattle found in Indus zooarchaeological assemblages, it is generally assumed they were used for secondary products utilisation (e.g. Channarayapatna, 2018 ; Chase et al, 2014 , 2018 ), such as traction ( Miller, 2003 ; Chase, 2010 ) and dairying ( Gouin, 1990 ). Although the results suggest that ruminant milk may have been used in some Indus vessels, the percentage of vessels that are linked directly to dairy processing is very small.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Available carbon isotopic results from tooth enamel of domestic animals suggest that cattle/buffalo had almost exclusively C 4 diets, while sheep/goat had mixed consumption of C 4 and C 3 plants ( Chase et al, 2014 , Chase et al, 2018 ; Sarkar et al, 2016 ; Chakraborty et al, 2018 ; Lightfoot et al, 2020 ). The data suggests that humans may have controlled cow and water buffalo diets, feeding them millets or wild C 4 vegetation ( Chase et al, 2014 ; Lightfoot et al, 2020 ), while sheep and goats had less controlled diets, and were presumably roaming the landscape ( Lightfoot et al, 2020 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Lipid residues in pottery from the Indus Civilisation in northwest India

Suryanarayan

Morera

Craig

et al. 2021

Journal of Archaeological Science

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lipid residues in pottery from the Indus Civilisation in northwest India

Suryanarayan

Morera

Craig

et al. 2021

Journal of Archaeological Science

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“…The cotton found at Mleiha (seeds and textiles, with means of 0.7110 ± 0.0016 and 0.7105 ± 0.0020, respectively) do not correspond with such ranges observed from the Deccan Trap basalts, with certain regions mostly having values that are too low, and in some cases (such as the Bushe formation) too high, to correspond with the measured strontium isotope composition of the textiles and seeds. However, faunal herbivore dung from Saurashtra, a site in western India which overlies Deccan Trap Basalts exhibited a range of 0.7093 ± 0.0004 (n = 58) 61 . The material from this site, as well as Mainland and Kachchh in the Gujarat region of India 61 share an overlapping range of values with the cotton at Mleiha (within the orange bands of Fig.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, faunal herbivore dung from Saurashtra, a site in western India which overlies Deccan Trap Basalts exhibited a range of 0.7093 ± 0.0004 (n = 58) 61 . The material from this site, as well as Mainland and Kachchh in the Gujarat region of India 61 share an overlapping range of values with the cotton at Mleiha (within the orange bands of Fig. 4 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While the bioavailable strontium isotope values of southeastern Arabia have a small strontium isotope range 32 (inconsistent with that of the archaeological cotton), values from western India exhibit a greater degree of spatial isotope variation that covers that observed in the Mleiha cotton. Several studies from the vast Indo-Pakistani region have measured the strontium isotope ratios of archaeological faunal and human enamel and modern herbivore dung 32,33,[60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67] (see Fig. 3 for geographical locations and Fig.…”

Section: Potential Source Regions Based On Isotopic Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

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Strontium isotope evidence for a trade network between southeastern Arabia and India during Antiquity

Ryan

Dabrowski

Dapoigny

et al. 2021

Sci Rep

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Cotton (Gossypium sp.), a plant of tropical and sub-tropical origin, appeared at several sites on the Arabian Peninsula at the end of the 1st mill. BCE-beginning of the 1st mill. CE. Its spread into this non-native, arid environment is emblematic of the trade dynamics that took place at this pivotal point in human history. Due to its geographical location, the Arabian Peninsula is connected to both the Indian and African trading spheres, making it complex to reconstruct the trans-continental trajectories of plant diffusion into and across Arabia in Antiquity. Key questions remain pertaining to: (1) provenance, i.e. are plant remains of local or imported origin and (2) the precise timing of cotton arrival and spread. The ancient site of Mleiha, located in modern-day United Arab Emirates, is a rare and significant case where rich archaeobotanical remains dating to the Late Pre-Islamic period (2nd–3rd c. CE), including cotton seeds and fabrics, have been preserved in a burned-down fortified building. To better understand the initial trade and/or production of cotton in this region, strontium isotopes of leached, charred cotton remains are used as a powerful tracer and the results indicate that the earliest cotton finds did not originate from the Oman Peninsula, but were more likely sourced from further afield, with the north-western coast of India being an isotopically compatible provenance. Identifying the presence of such imported cotton textiles and seeds in southeastern Arabia is significant as it is representative of the early diffusion of the crop in the region, later to be grown extensively in local oases.

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

et al. 2019

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The Fertile Crescent, its hilly flanks and surrounding drylands has been a critical region for studying how climate has influenced societal change, and this review focuses on the region over the last 20,000 years. The complex social, economic, and environmental landscapes in the region today are not new phenomena and understanding their interactions requires a nuanced, multidisciplinary understanding of the past. This review builds on a history of collaboration between the social and natural palaeoscience disciplines. We provide a multidisciplinary, multiscalar perspective on the relevance of past climate, environmental, and archaeological research in assessing present day vulnerabilities and risks for the populations of southwest Asia. We discuss the complexity of palaeoclimatic data interpretation, particularly in relation to hydrology, and provide an overview of key time periods of palaeoclimatic interest. We discuss the critical role that vegetation plays in the human–climate–environment nexus and discuss the implications of the available palaeoclimate and archaeological data, and their interpretation, for palaeonarratives of the region, both climatically and socially. We also provide an overview of how modelling can improve our understanding of past climate impacts and associated change in risk to societies. We conclude by looking to future work, and identify themes of “scale” and “seasonality” as still requiring further focus. We suggest that by appreciating a given locale's place in the regional hydroscape, be it an archaeological site or palaeoenvironmental archive, more robust links to climate can be made where appropriate and interpretations drawn will demand the resolution of factors acting across multiple scales. This article is categorized under: Human Water > Water as Imagined and Represented Science of Water > Water and Environmental Change Water and Life > Nature of Freshwater Ecosystems

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What is left behind: Advancing interpretation of pastoral land-use in Harappan Gujarat using herbivore dung to examine biosphere strontium isotope ( 87 Sr/ 86 Sr) variation

Cited by 21 publications

References 65 publications

Lipid residues in pottery from the Indus Civilisation in northwest India

Lipid residues in pottery from the Indus Civilisation in northwest India

Strontium isotope evidence for a trade network between southeastern Arabia and India during Antiquity

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

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