South Asia (Geographic Keyword)
51-75 (82 Records)
This introductory paper to the session on research underway at the Shishan Marsh I site in the Azraq Oasis, Jordan presents an overview of the results of our paleoenvironmental, faunal, lithic and site formation analyses. A model of targeted and repeated use of the marsh is suggested. These results are situated within their historic and regional contexts and their implications for understanding the capabilities of Middle Pleistocene hominins are also considered.
The Origin of Human Creativity (2017)
The recent discovery of cave paintings in Sulawesi dating to at least 40,000 years ago has altered our understanding of the origins and spread of the first painting traditions. This suggests that either rock art developed independently in Europe and Southeast Asia at about the same time, or that our species invented this trait prior to its initial expansion from Africa. Here I will discuss the implication of this discovery as well as new evidence from Borneo with the aim to deepen our knowledge...
Other Archaeologies of the Present: Enduring Legacies of Past Land Use (2016)
Some scholars take the label 'archaeology of the present' to refer to the study of very recent archaeological records and material remains, but here I use it to refer to the ways in which even ancient human action has ongoing significance for the present and the future. One of the many arenas of the contemporary significance of the 'archaeological' past is the legacy of past land use, including that of irrigated agriculture, on regional and global vegetation, landforms, and even climate. I...
Particularal Histories of Diaspora: Historical Archaeology on the Cormandal Coast (2021)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Historical Archaeology in South Asia" , at the 2021 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Trinidad, Gudeloupe; Suriname, and Jamaica; Maurituius, Reunion, Singapore and the Cape, Fiji, Singapore, malyasia and the Phillipines. All of these are places that share one apparent factor. South Asians, of multiple denominations, genders and castes circulated in the Indian, pacific, and Atlantic oceans as enslaved and indentured...
Past human activities: ethnographic and geostatistical models from North Gujarat (India) (2015)
The main aim of archaeological research is the reconstruction of past human activities. So far this has been achieved mostly through the study of material culture. However, activities related to food production and consumption represent an important part of human life and leave microscopic and chemical traces. The use of ethnography and geostatistical approaches can help in unlock the patters and identify activity areas in a controlled environment. We present here results from a...
The People, the Megaliths, and the Changing Times in Cherrapunjee (2016)
The megaliths of Cherrapunjee, are part of a prehistoric cultural tradition which is intricately woven with the socio-cultural life of the Khasis and Jaintias. But material changes in the nature of society and the economy in the latter half of the twentieth century have resulted in new identity formations in Cherrapunjee and this has undermined some of the presumed certainties of cultural identity. This study documented local community attitudes regarding the megaliths and how the community...
Plant based textiles and basketry at Harappa, Pakistan (3700-1900 BCE) (2017)
Excavations at the site of Harappa undertaken by the Harappa Archaeological Research Project between 1986 and 2010 have recovered a wide variety of artifacts relating to plant based textiles and basketry from between 3700 to 1900 BCE. This paper will present the results of the analysis of archaeological evidence and experimental studies used to develop more accurate interpretations of the nature of early plant based fibers and basketry. Woven textile impressed terracotta beads and spindle whorls...
A plethora of possibilities: Evaluating debitage from large habitation mounds (2015)
For the past few decades, the analysis of lithic production has incorporated an extensive consideration of debitage. While this work has been fruitful, the social and economic context of early habitation mounds presents a number of challenges to debitage analysis. Debitage can result from a number of activities beyond chipped tool production; as a result, researchers must carefully analyze broader economic and social activities in order to offset these challenges. This paper will present the...
Reevaluating Vijayanagara Imperial Collapse (2015)
This paper reexamines notions of imperial collapse by looking at recent archaeological work at the eponymous capital of the Vijayanagara Empire and at settlements of one of its subordinate regional polities. The Vijayanagara Empire is well-known archaeologically through work at its primary capital at modern day Hampi, Karnataka, India, which is today recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The former primary capital city was intensively occupied until just after the empire suffered a serious...
Regional connections identified through the analysis of glass beads from Samdzong, Upper Mustang, Nepal, CE 500 (2015)
Samdzong is found in the Kali Gandaki drainage in Upper Mustang, Nepal, just to the south of Tibet. Known from historical sources that date to the 17th C., Samdzong was an important waypoint on the salt trade route between South India and the Tibetan Plateau. Aside from salt from the plateau, these documents say little about other materials that were exchanged, and virtually nothing about their places of origin. The antiquity of the salt route was simply assumed. Excavations at the site...
Revisiting Harappa. A re-evaluation of Macro-botanical evidence. (2017)
Harappa is a key site in understanding of the plant-human relationships that defined the increasing urbanization and eventual regionalization of the Indus Valley from 3300-1700 cal. BC. This paper presents a re-evaluation of macro-botanical evidence excavated at Harappa from 1990-2000. It charts how the archaeobotanical record reflects changing social organization at the site.
Segmentary Opposition and the Theory of Games: a Study of Pathan Organization (1959)
This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the National Archaeological Database Reports Module (NADB-R) and updated. Most NADB-R records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us at comments@tdar.org.
Settlement, Socio-environmental Practice and the Long Durée of Landscape Production in South India: A Regional View from Maski, Raichur District, Karnataka (2017)
For five seasons, the Maski Archaeological Research Project has been collecting new multi-period archaeological and environmental data on changing patterns in settlement, agricultural, pastoral and metallurgical land-use practices from a 64km2 study area surrounding the large multi-period site at Maski. Our research documents significant temporal changes in the size, configuration, density and location of settlements, as well as those among a myriad of other sites (e.g. pastoral camps, field...
Six Thousand Years of South Asia: Implications for Climate Modeling. (2017)
We review the archaeological evidence for land use patterning in South Asia over the past 6,000 years as part of a larger effort of the PAGES-supported Landcover6k and LandUse6k project to reconstruct global land use and land cover data sets for the purpose of improving models of anthropogenic land cover change used by climate scientists. Here, we use archaeological and paleoecological data from our study areas to trace land use shifts from the Southern Neolithic through the Middle or...
Skeletal Trauma in an Ancient High Altitude Himalayan Community of Mustang, Nepal (2015)
High altitude regions in the Himalayas provided a challenging environment for the early human populations who migrated there. In addition to the risks of hypoxia and cold stress, people had to deal with difficult terrain and limited resources. Yet populations persisted and established complex polities, including those in the Mustang region of Nepal. Surface recovery and excavations of shaft tombs located near the village of Samdzong in Upper Mustang have yielded human remains and artifacts...
Socio-Ecology and the Sacred: A Comparative Study of Historic Natural Sites in Tropical Asia (2017)
Within the complex socio-ecological systems of South and Southeast Asia, ancient sacred natural sites were created by and imbued with cultural and ideological values; these were seen as liminal spaces or threshold environments. In this context, sacred natural sites act as transitional landscapes between the human and non-human worlds in ancient and modern times. This sub-project involves examining the roles of sacred natural sites in each of these three early state formations from 800-1400 CE:...
"The South" as object of knowledge between archaeology and history (2017)
With a focus on writing about the medieval period in southern India, this paper will interrogate how south India came to be defined as an object of knowledge, and thus, a space for representation. Narratives on the south Indian past, from the writing of the Dravidian proof in early 19th century Madras to Nilakanta Sastri’s iconic History of South India in the year of India’s independence, have engendered polyvalent inheritances for current historiographical projects. In unpacking these...
Spaces and Places: Examining historic maps from South Asia (2015)
This poster presents a preliminary attempt to systematically interpret and analyze historical cartographic data from South Asia. Information from historic maps of South Asia is combined with archaeological settlement data to reconstruct the nature and distribution of regional administrative and religious centers in south central India. Preliminary research in the area suggests that regional administrative centers often occupied a place in local pilgrimage and trade networks. However, this...
A Study of the Archaeological Landscape of Bairat, Jaipur district, Rajasthan (2017)
Bairat is a region located in the present day, Viratnagar tehsil of Jaipur district in Rajasthan. So far it is known for yielding two Ashokan inscriptions in the 19th century and being identical with the mythological Viratnagara of Mahabharata. This paper develops a larger understanding of the history of Bairat by studying its material culture which came into light after post-Independence excavations and explorations. To understand the settlement from about 7th century BCE upto 3rd century CE, I...
Studying maps: Buchanan in colonial south India (2021)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Historical Archaeology in South Asia" , at the 2021 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. This paper examines the importance of historical and cartographic information contained in documents from the colonial period (18th to 20th centuries) in framing archaeological research in south Asia. Specifically, the focus is on the published account of an information gathering journey on behalf of the East India Company conducted in...
Tales from Three Caves and a Rockshelter in Balkh Province, Northern Afghanistan (2015)
The geomorphology and archaeology of four Balkh River Valley sites near the bazaar town of Aq Kupruk (36º05’0"N 66º50’0"E) spanning the Upper Palaeolithic through Contemporary Nomadic cultures are detailed and compared. This valley served as a significant north-south corridor through the Hindu Kush Mountains, a western extension of the Himalayas, and a caravan route from the Turkestan Plain to the Bamiyan Valley and on to the Kabul River Valley, Indus and the Subcontinent. Major excavations were...
The Techno-politics of Water and Iron: Resource Materialities in South Indian (Pre)History (2015)
Water management and iron production were two socio-material practices deeply entangled with the politics of emerging social distinctions during the South Indian Iron Age. Beginning with small well-distributed modified rock pools and systematically dispersed iron-smithing facilities, Iron Age social actors laid specific claims to the materials, places and technologies of water management and iron production. This created and maintained a constellation of social differences and affiliations....
Technological variability and Change in the Lithic Assemblages from M5 at Dmanisi, Republic of Georgia (2016)
Recent excavations in the M5 Sector of Dmanisi recovered a series of stratified lithic assemblages dated to the Upper Olduvai subchron (1.85-1.78 Ma) and early Upper Matuyama Chron (1.78-1.76 Ma). These materials from all of Dmanisi's nine major strata provide the most detailed record of lithic acquisition and use from the site. Highly diverse raw materials were acquired and transported to the site from both bedrock and alluvial sources, in contrast to many contemporaneous sites in East Africa,...
Toward an Ecological Model for Chacolithic Cultures of Central and Western India (1984)
This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the National Archaeological Database Reports Module (NADB-R) and updated. Most NADB-R records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us at comments@tdar.org.
Un-entangling Pulse Domestication in South Asia (2015)
India possesses a unique Neolithic transition to sedentism and agriculture which has shaped the cultural and ecological trajectory of the subcontinent. In the early Holocene South Asia was a subcontinent of hunter-gatherers. By 2000 years ago it was mostly inhabited by farmers, supporting densely populated river valleys, coastal plains, urban populations, states and empires. South Asia appears to have been host to a mosaic of processes, including local domestication of plants and animals, the...