This is a complex paper that addresses an important issue in the emergence of cities during the Bronze Age: how were people in new and developing urban centers fed? As the authors put it crisply: "The populations of urban sites such as Harappa required substantial food supplies" (p. 83). Archaeologists understand the relationship between Bronze Age urbanism and agriculture as a complex, dynamic interaction that varied significantly across regions and was influenced by factors such as urban scale, population density, and local ecological conditions. This paper examines archaeobotanical evidence from Harappa to understand agricultural practices and labor organization during the Indus Civilization. The authors analyze 1,144 archaeobotanical samples to investigate how crops were processed and transported to this major urban center.
The authors set up the problem in these terms: "The availability of a large and co-ordinated labour supply for crop processing immediately after harvest should result in low numbers of small weeds and chaff alongside higher proportions of large weed seeds (Fuller et al. 2014; Stevens 2014). Alternatively, if crops were processed daily by individual families or small groups, we would expect to see large numbers of small weed seeds, high quantities of chaff and a high proportion of weed seeds to grain" (p. 85).
The author's results challenge traditional crop-processing models that have been used to interpret archaeobotanical assemblages at urban sites. Their analysis revealed three main patterns in the Harappa samples: 1. variable proportions of weed seeds to grain; 2. a lack of large weed seeds that would mimic wheat and barley; 3. relatively high proportions of small weed seeds. Traditional crop-processing models would predict that an urban "consumer" site like Harappa would show evidence of clean grain with few small weed seeds, as these should have been removed during early processing stages. However, the Harappa samples contained unexpectedly high numbers of small weed seeds alongside relatively clean grain and little chaff. The authors argue that this pattern is best explained by a combination of: off-site crop processing by a large labor force before transport to the city, and the widespread practice of dung burning at Harappa, which introduced small weed seeds into the archaeobotanical record. In other words, they agree that an important step in crop processing, cleaning it of chaff and large seeds, was done outside the city, likely by a labor force dedicated to this kind of service, but that the incongruous presence of small weed seeds within the urban area came from the use of dung as fuel within its premises.
The authors contrast their interpretation with that of Bates et al. (2017), who found similar patterns at smaller Indus village sites and interpreted them as evidence of household-level crop processing. Instead, the authors argue that the similarities between urban and rural assemblages reflect common cultural practices (particularly dung burning) rather than similar processing methods. The paper indicates that despite the political and economic transformations of Indus urban settlements over time, agricultural practices remained remarkably consistent throughout Harappa's occupation. This suggests a stable relationship between the city and its agricultural hinterland.
The authors acknowledge analytical decisions that might have impacted their results, such as excluding certain seeds and including other fragmented remains and that a combination of activities (dung burning, crop processing, and accidental food waste) likely contributed to the assemblage. How representative Harappa is of other ancient Indus urban centers is also unclear, as this paper focuses on a single site, and patterns might differ elsewhere. The paper also makes inferences about labor organization based on botanical remains, but direct evidence of how labor was organized then is still limited.
Nonetheless, the paper makes a significant contribution by highlighting the importance of considering multiple taphonomic (the study of how organisms decay and are preserved over time, from death to fossilization) processes when interpreting archaeobotanical assemblages and provides insights into the relationship between Harappa and its agricultural hinterland. While it supports general observations that crop processing was conducted off-site to supply the urban center of Harappa, consistently over a long period of time, it also introduces nuance to this interpretation by looking at dung burning a source for the presence of small weed seeds in remains from the city. One can only marvel at how archaeologists are able to use data like this to generate broader inferences and insights into ancient practices when so much other evidence is missing.
Image: Proportions of grain, chaff and weed seeds in Harappa assemblages through time, with raw counts displayed. Number of samples = 1144 (figure by Nathaniel James).