The dynamics of crop spectra in the highlands of Odisha: an ethnoarchaeobotanical perspective

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Modelling Human Behaviour through Ethnoarchaeology: Ethnoarchaeology as Long-Term Traditional Knowledge (L-TeK)" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The highlands of Odisha (India) are home to numerous Adivasi communities who traditionally cultivate rice and millets in systems of shifting cultivation and permanent upland cultivation. Various agricultural policies have had notable impact on Adivasi crop spectra, increasing the consumption of hybrid and high-yielding varieties of rice. Most recently, policies have aimed at reversing this effect through the promotion of millets, thereby targeting to reach the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Adivasi communities have historically been regarded as backward by mainstream society, and the implementation of agricultural policies in the highlands have therefore led to concerns among cultural anthropologists regarding Adivasi food sovereignty. Millets and rice have featured in several historical shifts in crop spectra in South Asia and beyond, providing a deeper understanding of the contexts and implications of such changes through time. Although the highlands of Odisha are hitherto void of archaeobotanical remains, sites in the coastal plain have yielded archaeobotanical remains from the Neolithic until the Early Historic Period. This paper seeks to bring together archaeobotanical and ethnobotanical datasets from Odisha to investigate the reasons that underlie the adoption and rejection of crops, thereby gaining an understanding of the deep history of crop spectra in the highlands.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• Modelling Human Behaviour through Ethnoarchaeology: Ethnoarchaeology as Long-Term Traditional Knowledge (L-TeK)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 52082