02/10/2020

Dr Bates has a new paper out today in Archaeological Research in Asia:

Kitchen gardens, wild forage and tree fruits: A hypothesis on the role of the Zaid season in the Indus Civilisation (c.3200-1300 BCE)

“The nature of agriculture in the Indus Civilisation of South Asia (c.3200-1300 BCE) remains a topic of intense debate. Traditional models of Indus agriculture have been built on the assumption that it was divided into two cropping seasons: rabi (centred on the winter Western Disturbance) and kharif (focused on exploiting the Indian Summer Monsoon). This paper endeavours to unpack this assumption by looking to modern agricultural strategies. Through this approach the nuanced possibilities open to ancient farmers can be explored and a third cropping season is introduced, the hot dry summer season, also called zaid. […] The paper reviews the archaeobotanical data and hypothesises that Indus farmers had the potential to exploit the zaid cropping season, and that Indus agricultural strategies may, as a result have been even more complex than currently modelled. […]The zaid hypothesis has implications for how Indus agriculture fits into wider debates surrounding of adaptation, intensification, sustainability and resilience in the face of social, economic and environmental change.”

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ara.2019.100175