Human Skeletal Studies

Walimbe, Subhash R.

doi:10.1002/9781119055280.ch31

Cited by 5 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 11 publications

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“…In the Indian sub‐continent, there are a large number of prehistoric sites which have provided a plethora of behavioral indicators in the form of tools, post holes, structures and eventually food processing and storage equipment (Gibling et al, 2008; Gunnell et al, 2006; Hazarika, 2006; Jhaldiyal, 1998; Lukacs, 1990; Misra, 1973, 2001; Sankalia et al, 1971; Selvakumar, 2013; Shipton et al, 2012). Most of the observations that are published on the recovered skeletal elements put emphasis on the cranial morphometry and dentition (Lukacs et al, 2001; Lukacs & Pal, 1993) with little stress on post‐cranial elements (Mushrif‐Tripathy, 2014; Walimbe, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A comparative study of robusticity indices of long bones among hunter‐gatherers and early agro‐pastoral groups of India

Sikdar,

Mushrif‐Tripathy

2023

American Journal of Biological Anthropology

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ObjectivesDiaphyseal robusticity and cross‐sectional shapes of the bone tissues are influenced by mechanical loading history. It changes according to work demand on the body. It is the objective of this study to identify the shifts in the modes of subsistence, activities and mobility patterns through the comparison of the shape and strength of bone diaphyses among the Mesolithic, Chalcolithic and Harappan populations of India.Materials and MethodsFor the analysis, 7 sites including 2 from Mesolithic (8000–4000 bc), 2 from Chalcolithic (2000–700 bc) and 3 from Harappan (3500–1800 bc) contexts are considered. The ratio obtained from the maximum length of the bones to their girth (at 50% or 35% from the distal end) and that from anterior‐posterior and medio‐lateral diameters were calculated (following Martin and Saller codes, 1957) to understand certain functional adaptations and stress markers on preserved long bones. Independent‐sample T‐tests and ANOVA were applied to detect mean differences of statistical significance within and between cultures.ResultsThe robusticity indices obtained from the humeri increase from the hunting‐gathering phase (M/F; 19.39/18.45) to the Chalcolithic phase (M/F; 21.99/19.39) showing a slight drop in the Harappan phase (M/F; 18.58/18.37). The right humeri of Mesolithic females show a directional asymmetry of length (4.08%–5.13%) while that in males reach up to 26.09% indicating right‐dominant lateralization. In the Harappan phase, females show a greater value for the right ranging from 0.31% to 3.07%. The femoral robusticity of females increases from 11.42 in hunting‐gathering societies to 13.28 in Harappan times while mid‐shaft of the Mesolithic population clearly shows greater loading along the anterior–posterior (A–P) plane as the index in most cases exceeds 100. There are significant differences among males and females within each group in terms of the indices but significant differences could be discerned between the Mesolithic, Chalcolithic and Harappan populations in case of tibiae, radii and ulnae only.ConclusionThe occupation patterns certainly changed as humans became a food‐producer from a hunter‐gatherer. Occupations involving the extensive flexion and extension of upper limbs in the Chalcolithic period increase particularly in the Harappan phase. Sedentism gave rise to roundness of the femur and reduced the magnitude of lateralization. While equal level of mobility can be traced in case of both the sexes before the advent of agriculture, this distinction increases between the males and females in the agro‐pastoral phases.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A comparative study of robusticity indices of long bones among hunter‐gatherers and early agro‐pastoral groups of India

Sikdar,

Mushrif‐Tripathy

2023

American Journal of Biological Anthropology

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Ritual, Urbanism, and the Everyday: Mortuary Behavior in the Indus Civilization

Schug

2020

Bioarchaeology and Social Theory

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Human skeletal material from archaeological sites is the most important source of evidence about embodied experience, habitual behaviors, and aspects of health in past people. Within bioarchaeology's broad area of inquiry, analysis of mortuary behavior (particularly when combined with paleopathology) is potentially the most critical tool for archaeologists to reconstruct ritual and meaning in the past. This work typically combines embodiment and practice theory to examine the importance of ritual, its contours, and its social function. This chapter asks what we mean by "ritual" and how "ritual" emerges from mortuary artifacts and features. This chapter seeks to move away from mortuary ritual as a distinct category of behavior in the Indus context, separate from a secular life in the urban environment. I argue that mortuary behavior for individuals in the Indus civilization varies because of the nature of the heterogeneous populations that occupied these urban settlements but perhaps also that mortuary and other ritual behaviors in the Indus civilization were entangled, enmeshed, and interacted with the everyday heterogeneity of people's life in the urban environment. While there is no common tradition apparent within or among all Indus cities, what is clear is that the urban lifestyle and environment participated in creating diverse rituals performed in a funerary context and that participation would contribute to memories of the cities long after their decline. Evidence is drawn from mortuary archaeology and objects, bodies and emergent behaviors, pathophysiology and health. These ritual and everyday dimensions of life in South Asia's first urban period speak to the deepest anthropological questions we can ask about meaning in the past and how it was lived in the urban context.

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Tales from Fragments: A Review of Indian Human Skeletal Studies

Mushrif-Tripathy

2019

Anat Biol Anthropol

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Human Skeletal Studies

Cited by 5 publications

References 11 publications

A comparative study of robusticity indices of long bones among hunter‐gatherers and early agro‐pastoral groups of India

A comparative study of robusticity indices of long bones among hunter‐gatherers and early agro‐pastoral groups of India

Ritual, Urbanism, and the Everyday: Mortuary Behavior in the Indus Civilization

Tales from Fragments: A Review of Indian Human Skeletal Studies

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