Largest Harappan burial site found - Farmana

[Guest guest]

65 graves point to largest Harappan burial site next door to capital

Posted: Mar 03, 2009 at 0250 hrs IST

 

 

New Delhi: Archaeologists from three universities have been at work

since the beginning of this year in Haryana's Sonepat district,

digging for what may turn out to be one of the most significant

breakthroughs in the study of South Asian protohistory.

 

Evidence of 65 burials has been unearthed over the past month at the

site in Farmana, 60-odd km from Delhi, making it the largest

Harappan burial site found in India so far.

 

The digging is in its third season now. Evidence of seven burials

was discovered last year, and should the work continue into another

season, experts say Farmana may throw up evidence of a larger number

of burials than even Harappa, the Pakistani Punjab town from which

the civilisation of the Indus valley (c. 3300 BC-1300 BC) takes its

name.

 

The discovery holds enormous potential, said Prof Vasant Shinde of

the Department of Archaeology, Deccan College Post-Graduate and

Research Institute, Pune, the director of the excavation project.

 

" With a larger sample size it will be easier for scholars to

determine the composition of the population, the prevalent customs,

whether they were indigenous or migrated from outside, " Prof Shinde

said.

 

A century-and-a-half after the great civilization was discovered,

historians still have no definite answers to a number of questions,

including where the Harappans came from, and why their highly

sophisticated culture suddenly died out.

 

" For the first time, we will conduct scientific tests on skeletal

remains, pottery and botanical evidence found at the site, to try to

understand multiple aspects of Harappan life, " Prof Shinde said.

 

" DNA tests on bones might conclusively end the debate on whether the

Harappans were an indigenous population or migrants. Trace element

analyses will help us chart their diet ¿ a higher percentage of zinc

will prove they were non-vegetarians; larger traces of magnesium

will suggest a vegetarian diet. "

 

Most chemical, botanical and physical anthropology tests will be

done at Deccan College. But the more sophisticated and expensive DNA

and dating tests will be conducted in Japan. The Research Institute

for Humanity and Nature, Kyoto and Maharshi Dayanand University,

Rohtak, are collaborating with Deccan College under the aegis of the

Archaeological Survey of India for the project.

 

The team also plans to carry out coring tests in lakes around the

Farmana site to ascertain climatic conditions prevalent at the time

of the Harappan civilization, and investigate whether the decline of

the culture followed catastrophic climate change.

 

.... contd.

 

http://tinyurl.com/bb7o49