Cereals, calories and change

Exploring approaches to quantification in Indus archaeobotany

Bibliographic Data

ID5396137
AuthorsJ Bates (0000-0002-7100-4741, University of Cambridge, corresponding author), C A Petrie (0000-0002-2926-7230, University of Cambridge), R N Singh (0000-0002-9494-5771), Ravindra Singh (0000-0002-1102-4839, Banaras Hindu University)
Year2018
Volume10
Issue7
Pages1703-1716
Publication date2018-10-01
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/s12520-017-0489-2
OpenAlexW2605390289
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited38

Several major cereal groups have been identified as staples used by the pre-urban, urban and post-urban phase populations of the Indus Civilisation (3200-1500 BCE): wheat, barley, a range of small hulled millets and also rice, though their proportional exploitation is variable across space and over time. Traditional quantification methods examine the frequency, intensity and proportionality of the use of these crops and help ascertain the 'relative importance' of these cereals for Indus populations. However, this notion of 'importance' is abstracted from the daily lives of the people using these crops and may be biased by the differential production (as well as archaeological survival) of individual cereals. This paper outlines an alternative approach to quantifying Indus cereals by investigating proportions of calories. Cereals are predominantly composed of carbohydrates and therefore provided much of the daily caloric intake among many late Holocene farming populations. The four major cereal groups cultivated by Indus farmers, however, vary greatly in terms of calories per grain, and this has an impact on their proportional input to past diets. This paper demonstrates that, when converted to proportions of calories, the perceived 'importance' of cereals from five Indus sites changes dramatically, reducing the role of the previously dominant small hulled millet species and elevating the role of Triticoid grains. Although other factors will also have affected how a farmer perceived the role and importance of a crop, including its ecological tolerances, investments required to grow it, and the crop's role in the economy, this papers suggests that some consideration of what cereals meant in terms of daily lives is needed alongside the more abstracted quantification methods that have traditionally been applied

Agriculture · Archaeology · Biology · Calorie · Crop · Geography · Indus · Staple food · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology · Ecology

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