From cradle to grave: Understanding food processing in the ancient Harappan habitation site of 'Dholavira' and in the burial site of 'Dhaneti'
Ahana Ghosh, Indian Institute of Technology
This research bespeaks the ancient food processing and cultural use of vessels by identifying the absorbed lipids inside the ceramic metrics within the Harappan settlement of Dholavira, Rann of Kutch, Gujarat. Further, it compares the obtained results with the identified residues from the vessels used as grave goods from Dhaneti, an Early Harappan burial settlement also located in Kutch, Gujarat. The Harappan civilization, also known as the 'Indus Civilization,' is one of the oldest Bronze-age civilizations of the world, contemporary to Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations dated between 3300-1300BCE. Dholavira, one of the largest metropolises of the Harappans, is situated in the isolated islands of Khadir in the Great Rann of Katch of Gujarat, India. The Archaeological Survey of India has excavated the site under the supervision of R.S. Bisht. The site's unique features include comprehensive town planning and a sophisticated water conservation system consisting of channels and reservoirs, the earliest found anywhere in the world. The village of Dhaneti is located around 25km east of the Bhachau -Bhuj highway, and the burial site is locally known as 'Rozimatano Saran'. The site has yielded around 43 burials retrieved from the mound following the surface indications. The grave vessels adhered to the burial mostly early Harappan in character portraying much affinity with the ceramics found from other burial sites of Northern Gujarat and especially with the ones found inside the Dholavira graves.
This project aims to explore diet and ritual practices involving ceramics by examining the biomolecular components lying in the lipid residues within ceramics used by the site inhabitants during their lifetime and even seeks for residues inside the ones eventually became part of their grave goods, adding a distinct symbolic value to it. Such analyses allow archaeologists to identify organic materials held and prepared in ancient ceramic vessels and will aid in further understanding economic and subsistence practices associated with the more extensive proto-historic cultural and technological traditions of the Harappans from Dholavira and Dhaneti.
Previous dietary studies in the region using lipid residue analysis and compound-specific isotope analysis focused only on the habitational settlements, but this research takes a leap and evaluates the food processing techniques in both habitational and burial sites for the first time and makes an effort to expand the corpus of mortuary food in South Asia. Finally, the above outcome will be corroborated with published faunal studies from the proposed sites. The typological analysis combined with organic residue analysis and faunal analysis will shed light on the functional aspect of the vessel groups concerning their form, fabric, contents, and context.
Dietary studies are still in the embryonic phase in South Asian archaeology. Thus, conventional ceramic studies must be reassessed and augmented with the latest scientific methodologies to understand ancient foodways at the site-specific and panoptic regional level for the subcontinent's first complex society.
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