Thesis
Agricultural labor and taphonomy at the Indus site of Harappa
Washington State University
Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
2018
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/100600
Abstract
The organization of agricultural labor is a critical in understanding the formation of early states and entrenched inequality. The primary paleoethnobotanical methods for investigating social organization has been the application of ethnographically based crop processing models. Relying on specific ratios of grain, weeds and chaff these models are vulnerable to social and taphonomic processes such as dung burning that can obscure past activity. The ancient Indus city of Harappa is one of the most important archaeological sites in the world, and is one of the least understood in terms of its political and social organization. This thesis presents an evaluation of archaeobotanical crop processing models, and seeks to disentangle both crop processing and dung burning within the macrobotanical assemblages excavated at Harappa from 1990-2000. Further, it attempts to elaborate on how the archaeobotanical record reflects changing social organization at the site.
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Details
- Title
- Agricultural labor and taphonomy at the Indus site of Harappa
- Creators
- Nathaniel Foster James
- Contributors
- Steven A. Weber (Degree Supervisor)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Anthropology, Department of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University; [Pullman, Washington] :
- Identifiers
- 99900525401501842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Thesis