Adaptation to Variable Environments, Resilience to Climate Change: InvestigatingLand, Water and Settlementin Indus Northwest India

Abstract

This paper explores the nature and dynamics of adaptation and resilience in the face of a diverse and varied environmental and ecological context using the case study of South Asia's Indus Civilization (ca. 3000-1300 BC). Most early complex societies developed in regions where the climatic parameters faced by ancient subsistence farmers were varied but rain falls primarily in one season. In contrast, the Indus Civilization developed in a specific environmental context that spanned a very distinct environmental threshold, where winter and summer rainfall systems overlap. There is now evidence to show that this region was directly subject to climate change during the period when the Indus Civilization was at its height (ca. 2500-1900 BC). The Indus Civilization, therefore, provides a unique opportunity to understand how an ancient society coped with diverse and varied ecologies and change in the fundamental environmental parameters. This paper integrates research carried out as part of the Land, Water and Settlement project in northwest India between 2007 and 2014. Although coming from only one of the regions occupied by Indus populations, these data necessitate the reconsideration of several prevailing views about the Indus Civilization as a whole and invigorate discussion about human-environment interactions and their relationship to processes of cultural transformation. Adapting to Variable Environments, Being Resilient to Changing Climates Given the considerable importance of climate, climate change, and human/environment relationships in the present, it is perhaps no surprise that there is ongoing interest in the way that humans caused and/or responded to environmental and ecological change in the past (

Large-scale, Multi-temporal Remote Sensing of Palaeo-river Networks: A Case Study from Northwest India and its Implications for the Indus Civilisation

“…Notwithstanding the positional accuracy of these locations [see 10,[63][64], the results for the northern sector of the study area (Fig. 3) suggest that proximity to the river might not be a good indication of contemporaneity as the fields close to the river channel might not have been the most productive in agricultural terms.…”

“…1), as they stretch between the Yamuna and Ganges hydrological system to the east and the Sutlej to the west, which is the easternmost river of Punjab, and part of the greater Indus hydrological system. The flat physiography of the plains of the Indus, Punjab and Yamuna-Sutlej interfluve, in conjunction with their proximity to the Himalayas, and the distribution of winter rain and summer monsoon rain combine to produce a distinctive environmental zone, where water availability is extremely seasonal, has significant variability, and can produce very active fluvial processes [10]. This variability had the potential to have dramatic consequences for early settlers of the region.…”

“…Harappa, Mohenjo-Daro) and an abundance of smaller town and village settlements, which are distributed across the Indus River watershed and its surrounding regions in both modern Pakistan and India. These settlements occur in a wide range of environments, and while a number appear to lie close to watercourses, a significant proportion seem not to have had direct access to perennial water [10,12]. Despite this, there has been considerable historical interest in the hydrology of this region and the plains of northwest South Asia in general, which has been markedly focused on the believed proximity between Indus settlements and relict watercourses [e.g.…”

“…Building upon the work carried out in northwest India by the Land, Water and Settlement project [10], an ERC-funded project entitled 'Winter Rain, Summer Rain: Adaptation, Climate Change, Resilience and the Indus Civilisation (TwoRains)' is exploring the mechanisms involved in the human adaptation to, and management of, variable and changing water availability. In order to properly understand human/environment relations in the past, it is important to move beyond the reconstruction of isolated palaeo-rivers to the reconstruction of the whole palaeo-hydrological network of northwest India.…”

‘Multi-cropping’, Intercropping and Adaptation to Variable Environments in Indus South Asia

“…The populations of South Asia's Indus Civilisation, who occupied areas of modern Pakistan and India, made use of a range of these crops and managed to occupy, and thrive in, a zone that straddled an important environmental threshold, where winter and summer rainfall systems overlapped ( Fig. 1; Petrie et al 2016Petrie et al , 2017Petrie 2017). The need to unravel the complexities of Indus cropping strategies has long been regarded as a fundamental challenge for South Asian archaeobotany (e.g.…”