P. Ajithprasad’s research while affiliated with Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda and other places

Archaeological and geological remains associated with the Youngest Toba Tuff (YTT) deposits in India are seen as significant proxies for reconstructing 1) Initial modern human colonization of India and 2) Possible climatic impacts of the Toba super-eruption of 74 ka on Indian climate and hominin behaviour. In order to gain further insights into the environmental impacts and behavioural adaptations of human populations in India before and after the Toba eruption, we investigated archaeological horizons associated with the Toba ash beds along the Gundlakamma basin in Prakasam District, Andhra Pradesh, India. Here, lithic artefacts were identified below and above the YTT deposits. The YTT deposits in the Gundlakamma river basin has a maximum thickness of 50 cm, comparatively thinner than those at the better investigated valleys of the adjacent Jurreru and Sagileru in Andhra Pradesh and the Son, Madhya Pradesh, India. Our surveys indicate that the Palaeolithic assemblages associated with YTT deposits from the Gundlakamma river basin can provide significant insights on the issues and debates surrounding the Toba archaeology. Supplementary material at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.5729449

Though the concept of Harappan homogeneity along with regional diversity is now a well established fact, still the development and spread of Harappan civilization is a puzzle to be solved. Recent explorations at the site of Janan, situated on the Khadir island of Kachchh district of Gujarat have brought to light significant evidence of Early Harappan period. The discovery of Pre-Prabhas pottery, Anarta pottery, Pre Urban Harappan Sindh pottery, Rohri chert blades and other important artefacts give evidence of contact between Kachchh, North Gujarat, Saurashtra and Sindh, Pakistan before the Integration era of Indus Civilization which is important since till date Datrana, situated in North Gujarat and Prabhas Patan (Somnath) in Saurashtra have given similar evidences. This paper is a comprehensive analysis of the lithic assemblage recovered from the site which gives evidence of crested guiding ridge technique being used for the blade manufacturing process in terms of presence of blades as well as cores which show crested ridges running along their longer axis. The presence of Rohri chert blade fragments without any lithic debitage of the same raw material strongly suggests that these blades were imported to the site. These findings are vital in establishing link between Sindh and Gujarat during Regionalization era of Harappan civilization.

Chance findings of human skeletal remains are very common in excavation process. Most of the time there are no indications of the grave on the surface. Some time while exploration or general cutting of the section can expose the bones. The present paper based on accidental exposure of human remains at Harappan site Surkotada, Dist. Kachchh, Gujarat, while visiting the site which was excavated in 1971-72 by Archaeological Survey of India under Shri. S.P. Joshi. Eventually bones representing almost entire body got exposed with some undamaged burial pottery. The finding came from a heap of soil outside of the boundary wall constructed by the ASI for the protection of the site. The AMS dating of a sherd (bulk sherd organics) from the associated burial pottery yielded the date 4590+/-30 BP (2 sigma Cal BC 3490 to 3465, Cal BC 3375 to 3340 and 3200 to 3195). Based on this date, the Surkotada burial and associated burial pottery can be dated to the second half of fourth millennium BC i.e. Early Harappan Phase.

The analysis of strontium isotopes in archaeologically preserved biological tissues is most productive when these can be compared to naturally occurring variation in strontium isotope ratios across the physical landscape. Such work is in its infancy in South Asia. Here, we report on the first attempt to monitor ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr variation across the Indian state of Gujarat using herbivore dung. As it incorporates plant material from throughout an individual animal's grazing range, herbivore dung averages local isotopic variation in palatable vegetation and is therefore an ideal material for use in studies involving domestic livestock. In our analysis of 125 dung samples from 38 sampling locations across the study area, ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr values and geographic variation are commensurate with expectations based on regional geology. The values that we report are significantly different from those reported for both ecosystem elements and archaeological humans and livestock that have been published for other regions of the Indus Civilization (2600–1900 BC). No individual humans or livestock in these studies appear to have their origins in Gujarat. The present study further allows for more detailed interpretations of our previously published study of strontium isotope ratios in faunal remains from the walled Indus manufacturing center of Bagasra in Gujarat (Chase et al., 2014b). Specifically, it is now clear that while most livestock show very little movement within the period of enamel formation, their places of origin were scattered throughout central Saurashtra, adjacent to the site, suggesting that a portion of the livestock consumed at Bagasra were initially raised in the many small unexcavated villages in the area. There is little evidence for the procurement of livestock from further afield within the region and none for livestock originating outside the region. These results demonstrate that monitoring geographic ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr variation using herbivore dung has the potential to significantly advance archaeological interpretation of livestock mobility in the past and is applicable anywhere that modern livestock graze on natural vegetation.

The Indian Ocean coastline is argued to have been a critical route of modern human dispersal from Africa, introducing Late Palaeolithic industries into South Asia, but a dearth of evidence has prevented a direct evaluation of this. Kachchh (Gujarat, India), located immediately east of the Indus Delta, is an important setting to appraise the Palaeolithic occupation of the western Indian coastline. Targeted survey of Late Pleistocene sediments there found widespread evidence for occupation of Kachchh during the Late Pleistocene: Middle Palaeolithic and possibly Late Acheulean lithic artifacts. The conspicuous absence of Late Palaeolithic industries in these Late Pleistocene deposits, with their presence only noted in Holocene contexts, does not support the model of modern human expansions into India with these industries via the coastal route. We evaluate these results in the context of current debates regarding Late Pleistocene hominin demography, adaptation, and expansions.

The exploitation of lithic resources was an important aspect of prehistoric resource exploitation strategies and adaptation. Research has mostly focused on technological and spatial aspects of lithic factory sites, often overlooking how these sites were integrated within local socioecological dynamics in terms of food acquisition and consumption. The aim of this paper is to study plant consumption at Datrana, a 5000-year-old lithic blade workshop in North Gujarat, India, in order to understand its occupants’ subsistence strategies. The results of archaeobotanical, mineralogical and soil pH analyses show that the occupants of this factory site were consuming local crops but not processing them, suggesting that either (a) food was being processed in other areas of the site or (b) it was acquired in a ‘ready-to-consume’ state from local food-producing communities. This study highlights the integration of a lithic factory site within its surrounding cultural and natural landscape, offering an example of how the inhabitants of a workshop interacted with local communities to acquire food resources.