To waste or not to waste

A multi-proxy analysis of human-waste interaction and rural waste management in Indus Era Gujarat

Bibliographic Data

ID5255335
AuthorsKalyan Sekhar Chakraborty (0000-0002-4434-2550, Ashoka University, corresponding author), Sheahan Bestel (0000-0001-9402-7842), Mary Lucus (Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology), Patrick Roberts (0000-0002-4403-7548, Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology), Prabodh Shirvalkar (0000-0002-6510-2783, Deccan College Post Graduate and Research Institute), Yadubirsingh Rawat, Thomas Larsen (0000-0002-0311-9707, Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology), Heather M-L Miller
Year2024
Volume16
Issue9
Publication date2024-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueArchaeological and Anthropological Sciences (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1866-9557 • E-ISSN: 1866-9565
PublisherSpringer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1007/s12520-024-02046-w
OpenAlexW4401341210
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited64

Waste management is paramount to town planning and ancient civilizations across the world have spent resources and mobilized labor for waste disposal and reuse. The study of waste management practices offers a unique window into the daily lives, social organization, and environmental interactions of ancient societies. In the Indus Valley Civilization, known for its urban planning, understanding waste disposal in rural settlements provides crucial insights into the broader socio-economic landscape. While extensive research has documented sophisticated waste management systems in urban Indus centers, little is known about practices in rural settlements. This gap limits our understanding of regional variations and rural-urban dynamics within the civilization. In this paper, using isotopic and microscopic proxies, we characterize the waste disposed of at the rural Indus settlement of Kotada Bhadli to reconstruct the sources of waste, including heated animal dung, and burned vegetation. We propose that rural agro-pastoral settlements in Gujarat during the Indus Era systematically discarded such waste in specific locations. By characterizing waste produced at Kotada Bhadli, we are also able to reconstruct the natural environment and how the natural and cultural landscape around the settlement was exploited by the residents of the settlement for their domestic and occupational needs. Our identification of the attention paid to waste disposal by the inhabitants of Kotada Bhadli adds significant data to our understanding of waste disposal as an insight into past lives

Agriculture · Archaeology · Civilization · Environmental planning · Geography · Human settlement · Indus · Municipal solid waste · Political science · Rural area · Rural settlement · Subsistence agriculture · Waste disposal · Waste management · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Archaeology and Rock Art Studies · Engineering · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology · Geology