Thesis
Climate change, agriculture and human adaption at the Indus site of Harappa
Washington State University
Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
2019
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/100864
Abstract
Harappa offers a unique insight into past linkages between cultural response and climate change. This thesis investigates the relationship between climate, agriculture and human adaption to envinronment using the case of the Indus site of Harappa. Relying on paleoclimatic proxies alone cannot explain how these paleoclimatic factors exactly contributed to the changes in subsistence strategies, particularly in agriculture. When discussing climate change and its impact on agriculture, we have to first be able to correctly identify what ancient climates were like and how these climatic factors affected human ability to grow crops. Using the macrobotanical assemblages excavated at Harappa between 1990 and 2000, this thesis estimates the water deficit and rainfall satisfaction rate of crops at Harappa and seek to track how their rainfall satisfaction rates varied across time. Further, this thesis attempts to estimate how climate change affected the farming at Harappa, how large the climatic impact was on the agriculture at Harappa and how Harappan people may have responded to climate change, based on the nature and intensity of rainfall.
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Details
- Title
- Climate change, agriculture and human adaption at the Indus site of Harappa
- Creators
- Yawei You
- 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
- 99900525162801842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Thesis