'Harappan food was rich in fleshy delights'

Interview/ Dr Nayanjot Lahiri, historian, archaeologist and author

The discovery of Indus Civilisation was a significant event in the history of Indian archaeology. As we commemorate 100 years of this discovery, how do you view this journey?

The journey is very different from what one usually encounters. It was 90 years in the making. It is also not a saga around one individual and his work. There are several heroes here―an Italian linguist-turned archaeologist, a brilliant Bengali scholar, British gazetteers and Archaeological Survey men, and above all, John Marshall, the director general of the ASI. These characters quite unexpectedly became heroes in the sense that it was in the course of their normal archaeological diggings that they discovered clues which would eventually change the way the Indian past was visualised. This means that it was an institutional achievement of the ASI.

This civilisation has cities and sites in both India and Pakistan. An appropriate tribute would be to have an exhibition where objects of the Indus Civilisation which were divided after partition are brought together. Partitioning of the collection in the way in which it was done―where some objects like the Mohenjo-daro girdle and a necklace with beads of gold, agate and jasper were divided down the middle―is unethical. They should be viewed as they were originally in both India and Pakistan.

How do you think colonialism shaped our early understanding of this civilisation?

Actually, the discovery of the Indus Civilisation was seen in a way and was written in prose that was ‘uncolonial’. The birth and the character of the civilisation was seen as entirely indigenous. This is what Marshall wrote: ‘…this forgotten civilisation, of which the excavations of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro have now given us a first glimpse, was developed in the Indus valley itself, and just as distinctive of that region as the civilisation of the pharaohs was distinctive of the Nile.’

Where the character of the government in British India is worth highlighting is in relation to the build up towards the discovery. As early as in 1907, Marshall was keen to excavate Harappa but this was waylaid by something as mundane and frustrating as budgetary constraints. The price for acquiring the mounds of Harappa was beyond the budget of the ASI. Non-commercial departments like the ASI worked on very small budgets.

Along with Marshall, which other archaeologists would you consider as pioneers deserving recognition and celebration?

A discerning archaeologist like Daya Ram Sahni and a brilliant one like Rakhal Das Banerji, who had, within a few years of each other, uncovered the relics entombed in Harappa and Mohenjo-daro respectively; alongside, a debutant like Madho Sarup Vats, who first saw the cultural congruences between the two cities which went beyond the enigmatic seals; and the unfortunate linguist-turned explorer Luigi Pio Tessitori, who excavated seals of Harappan antiquity from the earth of Kalibangan but never lived to tell their tale.

How do you view the role of Indian archaeologists after independence in studying the Indus Civilisation?

Post-independence, Indian archaeologists like Amalananda Ghosh, S.R. Rao and others played a stellar role in discovering Harappan sites in India. In fact, the ASI made the search for Harappan sites within the national borders a national project―to be carried forward by Indian archaeologists.

Also, there were important excavations which tried to fill the gap between proto-historic and early historic India. There was Ropar in Punjab and Hastinapur in Uttar Pradesh where the timelines revealed that they stretched from proto-history till the medieval period. Another major achievement was the body of research that revealed a steady occupation in different parts of India by a variety of cultures and people. Some of this work was done by universities, especially Deccan College, Pune, and MS University, Baroda.

Have successive Indian governments been supportive of archaeological excavations and research?

Yes, I don’t think there has been a dearth of funds for research. It is just that the ASI is burdened with a lot of other work. As a consequence, publications have lagged behind and that is a weakness that needs to be tackled.

How ‘ancient’ is ancient India? What are the oldest known findings, and which new areas should researchers focus on to decode its antiquity further?

A very early chronology for Tamil Nadu from the prehistoric site of Attirampakkam has emerged. So, our prehistoric ancestors there have been shown as being present some 1.5 million years ago. Ancient India certainly goes back to that time.

If we are looking at new areas where researchers can possibly decode the antiquity further, the Sivalik range and the Narmada area would be very promising. Above all, we need more scientific dates. If India has a rich and continuous prehistoric record, the urgency of comprehensively generating associated scientific dates for this record needs to be realised―which requires many more laboratories where chronometric dating on archaeological samples is regularly done.

Based on current research, what do we know about the eating habits of the Harappan population? 

Harappan food was rich in all kinds of fleshy delights. Indeed, with an impressive variety of meats, fish and fowl, the cuisine of Harappan city dwellers would be considered a gourmand’s delight even today.  Plant remains from Harappan sites reveal the entire repertoire, from cereals and lentils to fruits and vegetables, and even the spices used for seasoning them.

Before giving a graphic description of the nourishing non-vegetarian fare   that they delighted in consuming,   perhaps I should mention how food remains are studied. Within the material culture that has survived, there is the garbage of everyday life found at archaeological sites around the production and consumption of food –vast quantities of broken and discarded pottery, chewed and charred animal bones, sundry cereals and seeds of fruits and implements used in producing and processing food. Such artefacts are now studied through scientific techniques that can even indicate whether the stone tools were used to cut meat or wild grass, and whether grinding stones mashed mangoes or cereals.

 In India, unfortunately we don’t get direct evidence of a meal ie., of what ancient people consumed a particular time on a particular day because this comes from the stomachs and the poop of past people. Neither of these have survived in archaeological contexts here. Coprolites ie., fossilized potty have survived elsewhere, and the largest number of such specimens are found in the South Florida Museum in the US of A.

Occasionally, a single sample on a site will yield very large amounts of material. At the Harappan city of Surkotada, charred lumps of carbonized seeds were discovered from an earthen pot. Two of the charred lumps yielded   nearly six hundred specimens, an overwhelming majority of which were from wild plants. Only about 7 per cent were identified as being of cereals. The cereals were millets, wild and cultivated, wild grasses, nuts, weeds, etc.   This cannot give clues to the relative importance of different cereals because the sample only reflects a moment in time. Ideally what an archaeologist needs is a larger number of samples from a single period on the site.   This is what provides insights into diet over time.

Plant remains from Harappan sites reveal the entire repertoire, from cereals and lentils to fruits and vegetables, and even the spices used for seasoning them. Recognizing grains is easy and has been done for nearly a century since the discovery of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, because burnt cereals survive rather well and sometimes also leave imprint on clay.   Among vegetables and fruits, it is usually their seeds that are identified. More recently, the archaeologist Arunima Kashyap recovered and identified at Harappan Farmana (in rural Haryana) starch granules from pots, grinding stones, and teeth, showing the processing, cooking and consumption of mangoes, bananas and even garlic. What was left over after the household ate was evidently fed to their animals, since the same starch granules were scraped off the teeth from cattle remains found there.

 Lahiri is professor of history at Ashoka University and previously at Delhi University. Her books include The Archaeology of Indian Trade Routes,  Finding Forgotten Cities, The Decline and Fall of the Indus Civilization and Ashoka in Ancient India.