Water Supply, Labor Requirements, and Land Ownership in Indus Floodplain Agricultural Systems

Miller, Heather M.-L.

doi:10.2307/j.ctvdjrr1w.10

Cited by 16 publications

(15 citation statements)

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“…Such a system decreases the risk of subsistence failure by tripling the minimum yield of taro (Kirch, 2006). Similarly complex systems of irrigation existed in the Near East and South Asia (Harrower, 2008;Miller, 2006;Watson, 1983;Wilkinson, 2003Wilkinson, , 2006. Such large-scale irrigation systems can supplant prior risk-management systems that become less workable in large-scale societies, providing a measure of risk reduction to replace simpler systems such as sharing and seasonal mobility (Walker and Jodha, 1986).…”

Section: Irrigation and Water Managementmentioning

confidence: 98%

Archaeological markers of agricultural risk management

Marston

2011

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology

139

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Section: Irrigation and Water Managementmentioning

confidence: 98%

Archaeological markers of agricultural risk management

Marston

2011

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology

139

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“…Chakrabarti (1988Chakrabarti ( , 1999 has long argued that canal based irrigation may have been important, and there is evidence for major water storage facilities at sites like Dholavira (Bisht 2005;Wright 2010). Others have proposed that Indus settlements had a wide variety of low-cost irrigation techniques at their disposal (Miller 2006(Miller , 2015Wright 2010: 33-34;Petrie 2017), but our understanding of water supply in Indus period northwestern India remains nascent. That there are fewer site locations in the Mature Harappan period than in the Early Harappan period indicates a general concentration of settlement in specific areas (FIGURE 8B).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Landscapes of Urbanization and De-Urbanization: A Large-Scale Approach to Investigating the Indus Civilization’s Settlement Distributions in Northwest India

Green

Petrie

2018

Journal of Field Archaeology

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Survey data play a fundamental role in studies of social complexity. Integrating the results from multiple projects into large-scale analyses encourages the reconsideration of existing interpretations. This approach is essential to understanding changes in the Indus Civilization's settlement distributions (ca. 2600-1600 B.C.), which shift from numerous small-scale settlements and a small number of larger urban centers to a de-nucleated pattern of settlement. This paper examines the interpretation that northwest India's settlement density increased as Indus cities declined by developing an integrated site location database and using this pilot database to conduct large-scale geographical information systems (GIS) analyses. It finds that settlement density in northwestern India may have increased in particular areas after ca. 1900 B.C., and that the resulting landscape of de-urbanization may have emerged at the expense of other processes. Investigating the Indus Civilization's landscapes has the potential to reveal broader dynamics of social complexity across extensive and varied environments.

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“…Irrigation projects also constitute possible evidence of collective action. There is considerable debate regarding whether or not Indus agriculture involved substantial irrigation (Chakrabarti and Saini 2009;Miller 2006Miller , 2015Wright 2010;Wright et al 2008). Given the diversity and dynamism of the Indus civilization's alluvial environments, it is possible that collective authorities were involved in the management of Indus agriculture (Miller 2015;.…”

Section: Evidence Of Collective Action and Political Organizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Killing the Priest-King: Addressing Egalitarianism in the Indus Civilization

Green

2020

J Archaeol Res

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The cities of the Indus civilization were expansive and planned with large-scale architecture and sophisticated Bronze Age technologies. Despite these hallmarks of social complexity, the Indus lacks clear evidence for elaborate tombs, individual-aggrandizing monuments, large temples, and palaces. Its first excavators suggested that the Indus civilization was far more egalitarian than other early complex societies, and after nearly a century of investigation, clear evidence for a ruling class of managerial elites has yet to materialize. The conspicuous lack of political and economic inequality noted by Mohenjo-daro’s initial excavators was basically correct. This is not because the Indus civilization was not a complex society, rather, it is because there are common assumptions about distributions of wealth, hierarchies of power, specialization, and urbanism in the past that are simply incorrect. The Indus civilization reveals that a ruling class is not a prerequisite for social complexity.

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Water Supply, Labor Requirements, and Land Ownership in Indus Floodplain Agricultural Systems

Cited by 16 publications

References 0 publications

Archaeological markers of agricultural risk management

Archaeological markers of agricultural risk management

Landscapes of Urbanization and De-Urbanization: A Large-Scale Approach to Investigating the Indus Civilization’s Settlement Distributions in Northwest India

Killing the Priest-King: Addressing Egalitarianism in the Indus Civilization

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