Vasant Shinde

Animal movement on the hoof and on the cart and its implications for understanding exchange within the Indus Civilisation

It seems to be an adage around the ancient Indus research that solving one mystery simply surfaces another. This is the case with this paper. It takes on the question of ground – land – transportation in ancient Indus times only to find that larger answers around transport remain fuzzy.

Lipid residues in pottery from the Indus Civilisation in northwest India

Akshyeta Suryanarayan

An exciting new study that looks at food residues ancient Indus pots found in sites around Rakigarhi to decode the foodstuffs that once were in those pots. By examining the lipids or fatty acids that can be extracted from pots and pottery fragments, investigators were able to determine some of the foodstuffs in the pots.

Gregory Louis Possehl (1941-2011)

Vasant Shinde

On his ninth death anniversary, a tribute to the American archaeologist Gregory M. Possehl, one of the most prolific writers on the ancient Indus civilization – no less than eight books by Possehl are listed on this site, many of them massive tomes, covering all aspects of Indus civilization.

Evidence for Patterns of Selective Urban Migration in the Greater Indus Valley (2600- 1900 BC): A Lead and Strontium Isotope Mortuary Analysis

Benjamin Valentine

Although cemeteries and burial analysis of Indus peoples is sparse, the authors write, "however, important insights have been gleaned from available mortuary populations. Previous morphological and strontium isotope studies of skeletal material at the sites of Harappa and Lothal suggest residence change may have been common for certain individuals and that increased mobility facilitated gene flow with hinterland groups."

Archaeological and anthropological studies on the Harappan cemetery of Rakhigarhi, India

Vasant Shinde

A fascinating summary of the first data from the Rakigarhi cemetery that, in the words of the authors, while "insufficient to provide a complete understanding of Harappan Civilization cemeteries, nevertheless does present new and significant information on the mortuary practices and anthropological features at that time."

Archaeological and anthropological studies on the Harappan cemetery of Rakhigarhi, India

Vasant Shinde

An insufficient number of archaeological surveys has been carried out to date on Harappan Civilization cemeteries. One case in point is the necropolis at Rakhigarhi site (Haryana, India), one of the largest cities of the Harappan Civilization, where most burials within the cemetery remained uninvestigated.

The formation of human populations in South and Central Asia

Vagheesh M Narasimhan

The recent (Sept. 2019), 95 scientist, massive DNA study that shows how migrants into India from the west and north contributed to local DNA and which aligns with recent analyses on Indo-European languages coming into the subcontinent from the northwest as well.

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Vasant Shinde