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FI GUR E S viii 5.2. Småland Plateau 5.3. Cairn areas of early vs. late clearance 5.4. Development of infrastructure in early Jönköping 5.5. Four study blocks with varying proximity to state-building infrastructure 5.6. Example of settlement phases and expansions-Skärstad-Ölmstad Valley 6.1. Land claims and later farm properties in Skagafjörður, northern Iceland 6.2. Chayanov's model defining labor effort to meet household subsistence needs based on the marginal utility and increasing drudgery associated with increased work 6.3. Chayanov model of household production limits modified to define marginal threshold for surplus farmland 6.4. Settlement pattern in the Langholt survey region showing the timing and size of new farm establishment 6.5. Chayanov line defining expected labor effort based on household consumer-to-work ratio and the relative position of "overproducing" tenant and "underproducing" landlord households 6.6. Shift in relative marginal utility of land as landlord households establish tenant farms on their land 7.1. Folios 97b and 102d from the Madrid Codex (ca. AD 1300-1500?) 7.2. Folio 64 from Book 9 of Sahagún's Florentine Codex (1575-77), showing Nahua "feather workers" with rectangular panels of green maguey cactus fiber and white cotton 8.1. Gbe polities, Bight of Benin region, West Africa 8.2. Archaeological survey of Huedan countryside 8.3. Broken vessel fragments along curving arc of wall 8.4. Vessel containing human cranium 8.5. Contents of a shrine during excavation 9.1. Map of the center of Cahokia showing areas discussed in text 10.1. Location of selected shell ring sites in the American Southeast 10.2. LiDAR map of the Sapelo Island Shell Ring complex (9MC23) 10.3. Sapelo Island Shell Ring complex in relation to the broader landscape showing islands, ocean, and marshland

The early evidence of domesticated animals and human–animal interaction in South Asia can be traced back to the seventh millennium BCE; however, our understanding of their use is incomplete and limited to the analysis of animal bones from archaeological sites. By the third millennium BCE with the emergence of the Indus Civilization, cattle and water-buffalo became the primary domesticates and outnumbered any other animals at the majority of the Indus settlements. Based on the analysis of skeletal remains and ethnographic data, a number of studies have suggested that cattle and water-buffalo were utilized for their meat, dairy, hides, and other labor-oriented jobs. While some of these claims are backed by empirical data, others are primarily discussed as hypotheses, for example, the exploitation of dairy. In this paper, by analyzing the absorbed lipid residues from fifty-nine ceramic sherds recovered from an agro-pastoral settlement that was occupied during the peak of the Indus period around mid- to late third millennium BCE, we provide the earliest direct evidence of dairy product processing, particularly from cattle and possibly from some water-buffalo. By providing direct evidence of animal product processing, we identify the use of primary domesticated animals and other resources in the diet during the Indus Civilization.

A number of factors can affect spatial associations among production areas for different crafts. Surprisingly, survey and excavation of craft production areas from the Harappan Phase (2600-1900 calibrated B.C.) at the Indus urban site of Harappa have revealed no evidence that production locations were related to control by nonproducers. Instead, the distributional groupings of craft production areas were at least partially related to similarities in manufacturing processes. The three craft categories were extractive-reductive crafts such as lithic-and shell-working, pyrotechnologically transformative crafts such as metal and pottery production, and bridging crafts like talc/steatite and faience production that have both reductive and high heating stages. The patterns of association may relate to knowledge relationships between the producers or to requirements of manufacturing. Other factors in production location may have been Harappan views of what constituted distinct crafts, the value of the goods produced, and the likely consumers. A further factor, hinted at by the location of production areas on the various mounds of Harappa, may have been Indus ideological beliefs about civic structure and the proper placement of manufacturing within city centers.