Harappan Necropolis of Rakhigarhi, India: Archaeology and Bioanthropology

Summary

The number of Harappan cemeteries so far systematically surveyed is far less than that of contemporary settlements. Necropolis site at Rakhigarhi (India) was reported earlier but in small scale investigation. Our investigation for the last three seasons (2013 to 2016) was thus designed for improving this lacuna. We first classified each burial and analyzed statistically. The Harappan people practiced rather humble burial custom, but few were found differently and these burials look more socio-economically affordable than those found in typical burials. The health condition during life-time of the buried looks healthy according to bioanthropological investigation. Prone positioned burial is interesting since it was not as deviant cases. Rather, they would have held relatively higher social and ritual position in Rakhigarhi society according to anthropological and archaeological context. Collaborative work was designed for better investigation on the Harappan people’s life and mortuary customs. We applied to systematic osteoarchaeological field methods, bioanthropological lab-analysis and other innovative methods. This research was supported by Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education (2017R1D1A1B03030127) and National Geographic Foundation for Science and Exploration – Asia (Asia-21-15). Please contact DHS (cuteminjae@gmail.com) or VS (vshinde.dc@gmail.com) for any questions.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20646