A Companion to South Asia in the Past provides the definitive overview of research and knowledge about South Asias past, from the Pleistocene to the historic era in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal, provided by a truly global team of experts.The most comprehensive and detailed scholarly treatment of South Asian archaeology and biological anthropology, providing ground-breaking new ideas and future challengesProvides an in-depth and broad view of the current state of knowledge about South Asias past, from the Pleistocene to the historic era in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and NepalA comprehensive treatment of research in a crucial region for human evolution and biocultural adaptationA global team of scholars together present a varied set of perspectives on South Asian pre- and proto-history

Gwen Robbins Schug is an Associate Professor of biological anthropology at Appalachian State University (Boone, NC). She is the author ofBioarchaeology and Climate Change: A View from South Asian Prehistory (2011). Her research has been widely published in academic journals and covered inScience Magazine, National Geographic, Science Daily, The New Yorker Magazine,andThe New York Times.

Subhash Walimbe was Professor of biological anthropology at Deccan College Post-Graduate Research Institute and the Head of Department at Pune University before retiring in 2010. He is the author of nine books and more than 80 research articles on South Asian prehistory. His research has been funded by National Geographic, Smithsonian Institution, and the Ford Foundation, among others. He serves on the advisory committee to several Indian Universities and the Government of India research establishments.

Notes on Contributors x

Acknowledgments xvii

Formal Dedication xviiiV.N. Misra

Foreword xxAngela R. Lieverse

Maps xxvi

1 Introduction 1Gwen Robbins Schug and Subhash R. Walimbe

Part I Paleoanthropology in South Asia 11

2 Mammalian Paleodiversity and Ecology of Siwalik Primates in India and Nepal 13Rajan Gaur

3 A Decade of Paleoanthropology in the Indian Subcontinent (20052015) 32Parth R. Chauhan

4 Archaic Genomes and the Peopling of South Asia 51Mark Stoneking

5 Out of Africa and into South Asia: The Evidence from Paleolithic Archaeology 60Ravi Korisettar

6 Hominin Fossil Remains from the Narmada Valley 72A.R. Sankhyan

7 Mesolithic Foragers of the Ganges Plain and Adjoining Hilly Regions of the Vindhyas 86J.N. Pal

8 Mesolithic Foragers of the Ganges Plain: Pathology, Stature, and Subsistence 101John R. Lukacs

Part II Middle Holocene Farmers and Urban Dwellers 125

9 Current Perspectives on the Harappan Civilization 127Vasant Shinde

10 Excavations at Harappa, 19862010: New Insights on the Indus Civilization and Harappan Burial Traditions 145J.M. Kenoyer and R.H. Meadow

11 Bioarchaeology of the Indus Valley Civilization: Biological Affinities, Paleopathology, and Chemical Analyses 169Nancy C. Lovell

12 More than Origins: Refining Migration in the Indus Civilization 187Benjamin Valentine

13 Aryans and the Indus Civilization: Archaeological, Skeletal, and Molecular Evidence 205Michel Danino

14 The Ahar Culture and Others: Social Spectrums of the Mewar Plain 225Teresa P. Raczek

15 The Archaeology of the Late Holocene on the Deccan Plateau (The Deccan Chalcolithic) 240Prabodh Shirvalkar and Esha Prasad

16 The Center Cannot Hold: A Bioarchaeological Perspective on Environmental Crisis in the Second Millennium bce, South Asia 255Gwen Robbins Schug and Kelly Elaine Blevins

17 The Gandhara Grave Culture: New Perspectives on Protohistoric Cemeteries in Northern and Northwestern Pakistan 274Muhammad Zahir

Part III Historic Archaeology: Monuments and Meaning 295

18 Early Iron Age Megalith Builders of Vidarbha: A Historical View 297P.S. Joshi

19 Situating Iron Age Monuments in South India: A Textual and Ethnographic Approach 310K. Rajan

20 A Review of Early Historic Urbanization in India 319Reshma Sawant and Gurudas Shete

21 Historical and Medieval Period Archaeology 332Monica L. Smith

22 The Transition to Agricultural Production in India: South Asian Entanglements of Domestication 344Charlene A. Murphy and Dorian Q. Fuller

23 From Millet to Rice (and Back Again?): Cuisine, Cultivation, and Health in Southern India 358Kathleen D. Morrison

24 Death and Burial among Two Ancient High?]Altitude Communities of Nepal 374Mark Aldenderfer and Jacqueline T. Eng

Part IV South Asia in Retrospect 399

25 Prehistoric Archaeology in Bangladesh: An Overview 401Shahnaj Husne Jahan

26 Archaeology of Nepal 412Prakash Darnal

27 The Peopling of Sri Lanka from Prehistoric to Historic Times: Biological and Archaeological Evidence 426Samanti Kulatilake

28 Theoretical Archaeology in India: An Anthropological Perspective 437K. Paddayya

29 Moving Forward, Looking Back: The Collective Memory of Indian Anthropology 450Abhik Ghosh

30 Anthropology and Museums in India 465Kishor K. Basa

31 Human Skeletal Studies: Changing Trends in Theoretical and Methodological Perspectives 482Subhash R. Walimbe

32 Where Are They Now? The Human Skeletal Remains from India 496V. Mushrif-Tripathy, K.S. Chakraborty, and S. Lahiri

Index 534