Mountains of Manure: Assessing the Botanical Potential of South Indian Neolithic Ashmounds

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Advances in Macrobotanical and Microbotanical Archaeobotany, Part II" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Neolithic of southern India is notable for features known as Ashmounds, large accumulations of fired and often vitrified cattle dung. First described in the late nineteenth century, the dung-based composition of these impressive features was clearly established by the mid-twentieth century. To date, however, no botanical analyses of Ashmounds have been carried out, notwithstanding their potential to reveal aspects of regional vegetation, livestock forage, and climatic conditions. We report here on preliminary assessment of the potential for pollen and phytolith analysis of ashmound material, using newly collected samples from the site of Brahmagiri, in northern Karnataka.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Advances in Macrobotanical and Microbotanical Archaeobotany, Part II   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 41682.0