A Companion to South Asia in the Past

By Gwen Robbins Schug and Subhash R. Walimbe

A Companion to South Asia in the Past provides the definitive overview of research and knowledge about South Asia’s past, from the Pleistocene to the historic era in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal, provided by a truly global team of experts.

• The most comprehensive and detailed scholarly treatment of South Asian archaeology and biological anthropology, providing ground-breaking new ideas and future challenges 
• Provides an in-depth and broad view of the current state of knowledge about South Asia’s past, from the Pleistocene to the historic era in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal
• A comprehensive treatment of research in a crucial region for human evolution and biocultural adaptation
• A global team of scholars together present a varied set of perspectives on South Asian pre- and proto-history

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wiley
• Release date: Apr 13, 2016
• ISBN: 9781119055372

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Gwen Robbins Schug and Subhash R. Walimbe

South Asia sits at a geographical intersection between Africa and East Asia, a location that is critical to understanding human migrations, evolution, and biocultural diversity in the Old World. Throughout the Pleistocene, as our hominin ancestors migrated out of Africa and back again, they left traces of their journey scattered across the landscape of the subcontinent. Hominins did not just pass through South Asia but it is also far from the cul-de-sac it was once imagined to be. Genetic, archaeological, and fossil evidence demonstrates that in the Late Pleistocene, anatomically modern humans settled here and then spread out from South Asia to colonize the rest of the Old World. As hominins have lived in South Asia for more than 1.5 million years, the unimaginable volume of archaeological evidence on the surface of the landscape of the subcontinent alone is a sight we would encourage anyone interested in paleoanthropology to behold. This deep heritage has an influence on the incredible diversity we find in South Asia today. South Asian populations have evolved and developed over many millennia, and present an incredibly diverse suite of biocultural traditions and adaptations to the subcontinent’s varied and changing landscape. These deep roots of sociocultural complexity have been increasingly explored for more than a century by anthropologists of all kinds.

Scholarly interest in South Asia is burgeoning and an increasing number of scholarly books and articles attest to this exploding interest in South Asian pre- and protohistory. With a growing crop of fresh young investigators comes a diverse suite of analytical, theoretical, and methodological approaches to understanding complexity in the past. Long-standing questions about the development of sociocultural diversity in South Asia are being approached with fresh scientific investigations, including recent excavations. In addition to fieldwork, advancements in paleoclimatic, molecular, isotopic, and bioarchaeological approaches have revitalized the study of already excavated material and have changed the way we think about South Asia and its prehistory. For this reason, it is a great time to edit the Companion to South Asia in the Past.

This volume is intended to provide an overview of the current state of knowledge about South Asians in the past, using an integrated approach from both archaeological and biological evidence, spanning the Paleolithic to the Historic era in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. While no volume can entirely cover the fields of South Asian archaeology and biological anthropology, we have worked hard to include a comprehensive set of chapters, written by a diverse group of experts, more than half of whom are of South Asian origin or are currently working in South Asian scholarly institutions. The other authors are internationally known scholars who have dedicated their careers to working in South Asia. South Asian scholarship is broadly represented abroad, in North America and Europe. In developing the list of contributors, we made diversity—stage of career, gender, and institutional affiliations—a priority, as this has not always been attempted in other volumes covering this topic. We think this is critically important, as diversity of backgrounds and training brings fresh (and sometimes critical) perspectives to archaeology and anthropology, which may capture more fully some of human diversity in the past.

The chapters in this book cover the major theoretical approaches and issues in South Asian archaeology, from early human migration into the subcontinent and genetic diversity, to insights about biocultural adaptations of Paleolithic and Holocene hunter-foragers, to the environmental, social, and biological challenges of the adoption of agriculture in the middle Holocene and the development of urbanism and long-distance exchange in protohistory. The volume is tied together by the influence of the early pioneers in South Asian archaeology and biological anthropology, including the influence of K.A.R. Kennedy, a scholar of South Asian paleoanthropology and archaeology who has been a mentor, a collaborator, and an inspiration to all of the authors in this volume. His recent death on April 23, 2014 was an additional impetus to complete the volume in a timely manner, so it can serve as a proper tribute to his memory and his contributions to the field.

The volume commences with a section on Paleoanthropology in South Asia, including a discussion by Rajan Gaur of the mammalian paleodiversity and ecology of the Miocene primates of India and Nepal (Chapter 2). The Siwalik deposits of the Indian subcontinent rank among the world’s most famous because of the diversity of mammalian fossils represented here. Gaur provides a reconstruction of paleoecology and paleohabitats of several major primate fossil localities, based on an analysis of the fossil assemblages. In Chapter 3, Parth R. Chauhan reviews the last decade (2005–2015) of research on paleolithic archaeology in the Indian subcontinent, as an increasing number of students and scholars are performing new field and museum-based research, conducting experimental archaeology to understand pre-existing collections, and refining techniques for field (geographic information system, or GIS) and laboratory study. Chauhan reviews the current state of the field, ongoing projects, and potential avenues of investigation, including the need for basic research—additional surveys and paleoecological work.

Chapters 4 and 5 concern the evidence for the peopling of South Asia. In Chapter 4, Mark Stoneking takes up the topic of archaic genomes, what they can tell us about Early Pleistocene migrations out of Africa, and the peopling of the subcontinent. He argues that genomics data from Neandertal and Denisovan samples support a Multiple Dispersals model for AmHs and an overall picture of recent human evolution in Asia characterized by migration and admixture, not long-term continuity and isolation. Moreover, he suggests that introgression provided an important source of variation by which humans could quickly adapt to new environments.

In Chapter 5, Ravi Korisettar summarizes the archaeological evidence for Pleistocene migration routes of modern humans into South Asia, addressing the question of a long or short chronology for the first African exodus. He focuses on the securely dated archaeological evidence from South Asia to argue that hominins arrived with Mode I technology around 2 million years ago (mya) and then colonized South Asia in multiple waves: bringing Mode II Acheulean technology around 1.6 mya, late Acheulean technology between 0.7 and 0.5 mya, and Middle Stone Age technology from 130 thousand years ago (kya). Korisettar describes how, throughout the Late Pleistocene, humans traveled across the Sahara into the subcontinent along migration routes that may have been in constant use, from the Early Pleistocene forward.

Despite its prolific Paleolithic archaeological record, South Asia is not known for providing a wealth of hominin fossils. In Chapter 6, A.R. Sankhyan describes the hominin fossil record in India with a focus on recent discoveries of a Narmada fossil sequence, including a right clavicle, a partial left clavicle, a partial ninth rib, and two long bone fragments—femur and humerus—from another locality, Netankheri. Sankhyan reviews evidence for his hypothesis that the Narmada fossils belong to at least two distinct hominin groups (species?) living in South Asia in the Late to Middle Pleistocene—a large-bodied group that might belong to Homo heidelbergensis and a small bodied group that evolved from Homo erectus. The central Narmada Valley was a corridor of intra- and intercontinental migrations and suggests the possibility that the small-bodied lineage was related to other Upper Paleolithic populations of small hominins.

Chapters 7 and 8 provide an overview of the archaeological and bioarchaeological evidence from well-documented, deep, stratified, semi-sedentary Mesolithic Lake Culture (MLC) sites of the Ganges Plain, and the rockshelter and open-air settlements of the adjoining hill region of the Vindhyas. The MLC people hunted and foraged for lacustrine resources, processed wild edible grains and other gathered foods in the early to middle Holocene of north India. Contrary to early expectations, these foragers were sedentary, living in permanent villages that also demonstrate evidence for contact with agriculturalists, of incipient domestication of animals, inclusion of wild grains in the diet, heavy use of food-processing equipment (querns and mullers made of sandstone and quartzite), structural activity in the form of hutments, evidence for storage bins, handmade, ill-fired, crude stamped pottery, and remarkably consistent tool technology. J.N. Pal demonstrates how these sites offer important anthropological insights into what it means to be a hunter-gatherer in addition to demonstrating the roots of Neolithic culture in the Vindhyas.

John R. Lukacs describes evidence for pathology, stature, and subsistence in the human skeletal material from three major MLC sites—Damdama, Mahadaha, and Sarai Nahar Rai—conducted with the goal of understanding skeletal responses to diet, disease, and the physical strains of the hunting and foraging lifestyle. Traumatic injuries and skeletal markers of growth and activity in tibiae of Damdama specimens suggest repetitive or forceful biomechanical action in the lower limbs. Tall average stature and a lack of skeletal indicators of disease suggest that MLC people had food sufficiently nutritious to complete skeletal growth, despite evidence of repeated, periodic stress, evidenced in the form of enamel growth disruption. This profile is collectively consistent with a mobile foraging subsistence pattern and contrasts dramatically with predictions for the expression of these variables among sedentary agriculturalists.

In Chapter 9, Vasant Shinde provides a summary of the contours of urban life in the Harappan civilization, with a focus on cultural processes in the Early (3300–2600 BCE), Mature (2600–1900 BCE), and Late Harappan (1900–1700 BCE) periods. Shinde provides a synthesis of the most current understanding of the following aspects of the Harappan civilization: its origin and extent, town planning, subsistence and economy, industry and trade, copper/bronze metallurgy, script, religion, polity, and theories of decline. Shinde lists contributions of the Harappan civilization to world history, and discusses issues requiring attention in future research and some promising strategies for addressing long-standing questions. Shinde emphatically stresses the need for collective, interdisciplinary effort to achieve a correct and full understanding of the Harappan civilization.

In Chapter 10, J.M. Kenoyer and R.H. Meadow describe evidence from excavations that took place at Harappa from 1986 to 2010 which resulted new insights on the Indus civilization. Their chapter provides an overview of the scientific excavations and analyses of materials from the type-site of Harappa, Pakistan, the pottery and associated burial goods, stratigraphic relationships between the burials, the analysis of the skeletal materials by a team of biological anthropologists, and subsequent isotopic analyses by other scholars. These studies provide important new insights into the nature and role of burial in Harappan society as well as information about the extremely small percentage of the ancient populations of Harappa that are represented in these burials.

Nancy C. Lovell participated in the project described above as one of a team of bioarchaeologists involved in the excavation of the cemetery. Despite serious limitations posed by the poor preservation of these remains post-excavation, the efforts of a growing number of scholars have yielded important new insights from these assemblages. In Chapter 11, she synthesizes the published information from the past 30 years of bioarchaeological research conducted on skeletons from the Harappan civilization, including work on the biological affinities, paleopathology, and chemical analyses of the Harappans. Lovell suggests that bioarchaeologists working on migration and paleopathology should explore linkages between those aspects, connections between matrilocality or fosterage and violence against women and children, for example. She suggests that recent work in bioarchaeology has led to important insights, which warrant more careful excavation and preservation of human skeletal material, and implores archaeologists to examine some of the hypotheses generated from bioarchaeological research, including those involving social organization, kinship, and the effects of climate, social, and economic changes at the end of the Harappan civilization.

Benjamin Valentine seeks to refine models of migration in Harappan civilization archaeology to focus on human interactions in the past, rather than just the origin of people or the diffusion of technologies and concepts. Chapter 12 provides a brief review of the archaeological literature on migration, followed by a discussion of how the migration concept has been applied to Indus studies. Particular attention is given to the prospects and limitations of different analytical approaches. Furthermore, the review provides archaeological context necessary for interpreting recent bioarchaeological data sets on Indus civilization residence change. Within this chapter, Valentine outlines a lot of the predictions entailed by different models of migration, which must be tested on additional samples.

In Chapter 13, Michel Danino describes how eighteenth- and nineteenth-century attempts to trace the movement of languages—and, by extension, culture and people—from west to east were inspired by the idea of Aryan Man and ultimately constituted a false paradigm of an Aryan invasion as the driving force for human variation in South Asia today. Danino uses conceptual, methodological, and interpretive approaches to deconstruct the idea of the Aryan invasion before disowning the notion of Central Asia’s assumed contribution in the second millennium BCE of a major share of the Indian subcontinent’s gene pool. He explains and ultimately rejects neocolonial ideas that tribal groups are the relics of India’s original inhabitants while upper castes descend from recent Indo-Aryan immigrants. Finally, Danino argues for a Paleolithic origin for most Indian populations, including upper castes.

Teresa P. Raczek describes the archaeology of the Ahar culture and others that are included in the social spectrums of the Mewar Plain in the third and second millennium BCE (Chapter 14). While the Ahar culture is contemporaneous with the Harappan civilization and demonstrates a high level of social complexity, stylistic and lifestyle differences set them apart from the homogeneity of the Harappan civilization. Raczek opines that research on Ahar sites has focused on distinguishing them from the Harappans; thereby considerable variation has been obscured and some sites have even been excluded in this streamlined vision of the Ahar culture. She offers a description of Ahar life and a comparison of cultural practices that opens new possibilities for understanding sites typically considered Ahar—Ahar, Balathal, Gilund, and Ojiyana—as well as those that are generally considered outliers, like Bagor.

Among all the regional Chalcolithic phases, the Deccan Chalcolithic is the most researched and the best known. In Chapter 15, Prabodh Shirvalkar and Esha Prasad describe the archaeology of the late Holocene on the Deccan Plateau of peninsular India (what is commonly known as the Deccan Chalcolithic). This chapter focuses on the archaeological record of three major sites, Nevasa, Daimabad, and Inamgaon, and provides a detailed discussion of theories regarding the origin and decline of this culture, the ceramic styles, settlement pattern and public architecture, material culture, subsistence, religion, and trade contacts. The chapter also mentions ethnoarchaeological work that has so far attempted to decipher the Chalcolithic settlement pattern.

After the decline of Indus culture, urbanism and Harappan traditions were abandoned in favor of living in simpler, village-level agricultural societies. A number of villages and small towns were founded and flourished in west central peninsular India at this time, until this cultural horizon too came to an end c. 1000 BCE. In Chapter 16, Gwen Robbins Schug and Kelly Elaine Blevins consider paleopathological evidence for the human experience of environmental and social crisis at the beginning and end of the second millennium BCE, based on the immature remains from Harappa and Inamgaon. This chapter explores the biocultural context of resilience and describes evidence for metabolic disturbances (including scurvy) in the immature skeletons from these two communities. The results provide additional support for the hypothesis that different cemeteries at Harappa reflect more than community identity; they also show the social suffering of inequality. For the infants and children buried at the rural community of Inamgaon, environmental and social changes were associated with different stressors but biocultural stress levels indicate rates of malnourishment were always high.

In Chapter 17, Muhammad Zahir describes new perspectives on the protohistoric cemeteries of northwestern South Asia, the so-called Gandhara Grave Culture of Pakistan. Zahir details the history of research on these cemeteries and how the myth of the Aryan invasion shaped the direction of research and the interpretations of these burials. Zahir disputes the validity of using the Rg Veda to understand these cemeteries, demonstrating logical inconsistencies and problems related to an erroneous chronological framework, and provides recalibrated radiocarbon measurements for the protohistoric cemeteries in the Swat and Dir valleys. He also provides a more nuanced assessment of fluidity in the structure of graves, burial practices, and mortuary artifacts that suggests meaning was ideologically, ritually, socially, and culturally constituted in relation to features of the landscape where these cemeteries are found. The existence of multiple, and competing, ideologies may have been central to the existence and continuity of these burial traditions for more than three millennia.

In Chapter 18, P.S. Joshi reviews the typology and related terminology of Megalithic architecture before presenting a synthetic account of insights from centuries of research on the megalith builders of the early Iron Age of Vidarbha. He explicates three stages of conceptual progress of the Megalithic studies in the last 50 years. The first phase, from 1968–1978, made progress on the chronology of megalith construction in the Vidarbha region; the second phase, 1979–1999, saw the development of problem-oriented research and new scientific approaches that led to important insights into the socioeconomic and technological aspects of megalithic culture. The third research phase, from 2000 onward, began to address issues related to the origin of diverse traditions in the early Iron Age of Vidarbha. The author categorically states that the Vidarbha megaliths can no longer be examined in to isolation but must be considered as organically arising from earlier cultures of South India, namely Neolithic culture.

The South Indian megalithic monuments have undergone only limited excavation and we have only a restricted understanding of the origin, growth, diffusion, authorship, chronology, and material culture of this period in South Indian protohistory. Using a textual and ethnographic approach, K. Rajan provides a nuanced interpretation of the meaning and significance of these monuments (Chapter 19). First, he uses inscriptions on potsherds and accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) methods to date South Asian megalithic monuments to the Early Historic, up to the fifth century BCE. He then uses archaeological and textual evidence to dispute the notion that these people were nomads; instead, he argues that they were very much instrumental in transforming protohistoric into Early Historic culture. His research on the Sangam literature also sheds light on the rites and rituals performed while erecting the megalithic monuments. The author clearly demonstrates that a textual analysis, when approached from the proper perspective, contributes a great deal of new understanding to the material evidence from the Iron Age, the megalithic, and the Early Historic archaeological record.

The Early Historic (c. 500 BCE–300 CE) witnessed the manifestation of complex politics and social structures, architectural and technological advancement, the use of script and coinage, new religious movements, and the rise of a ruling class. The manifestation of these characteristics occurred at different times in different parts of India. Historical cities in India were traditionally understood through literature-based research, but in Chapter 20 Reshma Sawant and Gurudas Shete review research trends in the archaeology of urbanism that have recently begun to reveal the complex process of city formation, and its social, cultural, political, and economic aspects. By assessing the literary and archaeological sources, the author highlights a persistent confusion in archaeology about political organization at the onset of urbanism; they opine that ancient India is a perfect place to test hypotheses about the city/state dichotomy, among other issues. Finally, the authors advocate use of new techniques such as remote sensing, satellite imagery, and surface mapping in historical archaeology.

In Chapter 21, Monica L. Smith summarizes the field of historical and medieval archaeology in South Asia. Using textual and archaeological sources to understand interactions between cities and how unifying religious traditions shaped the Early Historic and medieval periods in the Indian subcontinent, Smith acknowledges the importance of recent inquiries that include landscape-scale perspectives on human–environmental relations and food production. Archaeology of the medieval period seeks to characterize the decline of urbanism, the strengthening of certain religious traditions, the regional consolidation of power, and the rise of medieval fortification sites. Smith advocates the use of new technologies like ground-penetrating radar, magnetic gradiometry, electrical resistivity, satellite images, and so on to capture information about threatened archaeological sites. She also expresses her deep concern over diminishing resources earmarked for libraries and archives, which puts historical documents at risk of damage from bioenvironmental threats. These and other threats can be ameliorated by relatively inexpensive digital archival technologies.

Archaeological research on the emergence of early agriculture has neglected the evidence from South Asia despite evidence of initial moves toward agricultural production, beginning in the middle Holocene. Charlene A. Murphy and Dorian Q. Fuller describe the evidence for South Indian entanglements with sedentism and regular cultivation of plant domesticates between 4000 and 1500 BCE (Chapter 22). The transition to agricultural production was slow in India, but by 2000 years ago, the subcontinent was primarily inhabited by farmers. The chapter focuses on evidence of this transition in different regions of India, but places the evidence within a broader context of other centers of domestication. The authors conclude that human communities took distinct pathways toward food production in different regions despite similar timing of domestication, a coincidence that might suggest an influence from broader climatic or social processes.

In Chapter 23, Kathleen D. Morrison examines cuisine, cultivation, and health in southern India. This chapter outlines some of the major transformations in agriculture in the semi-arid interior of peninsular India, with a focus on the conscious planning and desiring that have animated the construction of agricultural facilities, settlement locations, and the organization of labor in rural life and, over the course of 5000 years, created the highly transformed contemporary landscapes of this region. Morrison describes how past decisions have reshaped present realities—hillsides, hydrologies, soils, sacred landscapes, transport networks, flora, and fauna, as well as expectations about the good life in respect to food. Diverse food consumption practices are reflected in a mosaic of different forms of production, from rain-fed farming, to grazing, to intensive irrigated agriculture and well-watered gardens. In turn, different forms of production had varied environmental effects; gradually the built environment, too, was transformed by the infrastructure and impacts of irrigated agriculture, as temples, roads, dams, wells, and villages all reshaped landscapes. Morrison opines that food is the both the beginning and the end of a cycle of production, distribution, and consumption and, as such, food practices ultimately constitute both places and people.

Mark Aldenderfer and Jacqueline T. Eng are concerned with the meaning of human bodies and burial traditions among two high-altitude populations in Nepal. Chapter 24 describes human use of the high elevation valleys of the Upper Mustang, Nepal, from 2500 to 1300 years ago. The authors provide an analysis of the human remains and mortuary practices in these caves, which provide an opportunity to understand the biological stresses experienced by these high-altitude communities, biocultural responses that allowed the successful colonization of this challenging region, and the impact of migration and other complex processes on the archaeological record of this area.

The next section of the volume, South Asia in Retrospect, provides comprehensive treatment of the archaeological record for regions on the edges of South Asian archaeology—Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. We also turn to providing a synthetic overview of anthropological approaches that have been influential, if marginal, to understanding South Asia in the past. In Chapter 25, Shahnaj Husne Jahan reviews prehistoric archaeology in Bangladesh and aims to provide a scientific description of the prehistoric archaeological evidence from Bangladesh, avoiding any projection of the present nation—its origins or identity—onto a distant past. The most conspicuous feature of prehistory in Bangladesh is the use of petrified wood as the raw material for the prehistoric industry. This fossil wood industry is highly significant in that it represents a unique technological adaptation for South Asia, and it also demonstrates a unique Paleolithic horizon in the subcontinent. The fossil wood assemblages of Bangladesh present enough technological and typological similarities to tools from northeast India (Tripura) and Myanmar to suggest a regional prehistoric cultural tradition. This tradition is dissimilar to prehistoric artifacts from West Bengal in India. The chapter highlights how much more work there is to be done in this area and provides impetus for young scholars of prehistory to consider research in Bangladesh.

Prakash Darnal reviews the archaeology of Nepal in Chapter 26—from the reconstruction of the lifestyle and adaptations of the Paleolithic occupants of this region, to the development of relationships between Nepali people and other South Asians in the late Holocene, to archaeology devoted to documenting the life history, teachings, and travels of the Buddha. The chapter outlines the major historical developments in Nepali archaeology, focusing on some of the most spectacular sites and the most influential research in the region but with a goal of highlighting the vast gaps in our knowledge of Nepali archaeology and encouraging young scholars who might undertake to fill those gaps.

While prehistory has been relatively neglected in Nepal and Bangladesh, much more research has been undertaken in Sri Lanka. In Chapter 27, Samanti Kulatilake describes the biological and archaeological evidence for the modern human occupation of Sri Lanka, from the Late Pleistocene forward—a topic of keen interest to Professor K.A.R. Kennedy. In this chapter Kulatilake discusses observations on cultural, morphological, and genetic patterns in the contemporary population of Sri Lanka and their usefulness for understanding Sri Lanka’s biocultural heritage. What is clear is that peninsular and island South Asians maintained complex relationships for millennia, evidenced by archaeological and skeletal remains and genetic data. However, the people of Sri Lanka are heterogeneous and this heterogeneity is layered; traits have been introduced by ancient immigrants, superimposed with traits of more recent arrivals, then erased or highlighted over time by a combination of evolutionary, historical, and cultural processes and events. Kulatilake suggests that correlating biology and ethnolinguistic affinities of regional populations is not a fruitful path for understanding population histories in this region, especially because influences such as language replacement, gene flow, and genetic drift complicate the picture.

With Chapter 28, the book turns to an anthropological perspective on the past, providing a necessary background for the next generation of archaeologists and bioarchaeologists as they begin to reflect more deeply on South Asia’s culture and meaning, and how it is constructed. In Chapter 28, K. Paddayya provides an anthropological perspective on theoretical archaeology in India. He reviews 230 years of history of Indian archaeology from the establishment of the Asiatic Society in 1784 to the influence of processual archaeology to the present day. Paddayya describes the important insights to be gained from a close reading of the anthropologists and ethnographers of the early twentieth century. In reading Redfield, for example, Paddayya notes the similarities between his conception of village peasant life and those proffered by Gandhi. He sees in this vision lessons not only for understanding the past but also for humility in human relations in the present day. Paddayya implores archaeologists to read early twentieth-century anthropology and to think more deeply about the anthropological turn in archaeology.

Abhik Ghosh provides an overview of the early history of anthropological scholarship in India, through to the 1990s (Chapter 29). The formative phase (1774–1919) marked the beginning of Indian anthropology and was characterized by its emphasis on basic ethnographic accounts of tribes and caste groups in a natural historical setting, with descriptions focused on the diversity and difference of the customs. Colonialism played a large role in shaping the goals and gaze of early ethnographers, whose largely descriptive works are unmatched today by their rich ethnographic detail. In the constructive phase (1920–1949), anthropology as a discipline became more analytical, philosophical, academic, and professional. Indian anthropology reflected a clear shift from an ethnographic, descriptive focus to understanding culture as a set of relations and culture change as a process. In the analytical period (1950–1990), the focus of anthropological research shifted from monographic studies of a group of people to studies of more complex subjects, like whole villages. The data generated from such a large number of village ethnographies led to much theory building and generalizations. Ghosh traces the development of the discipline using the works of noteworthy personalities, many of whom may deserve a reread by archaeologists interested in anthropological archaeology.

In addition to new surveys, new excavations, and the employment of new technologies in South Asian archaeology, many of the authors in this volume have commented on the value of revisiting artifactual and skeletal collections housed in various repositories across the subcontinent. These collections represent a vast wealth of information for studies designed to account for biases related to their assemblage. In Chapter 30, Kishor K. Basa describes the history of museums in India, making explicit their historical trajectory from colonial constructs to postcolonial engagements. In the colonial context, museums in India provided legitimacy, although sometimes indirectly, at first to colonial rule and later to the growth of nationalism. To Basa, the museums of India reflect their origins as colonial vehicles for understanding and representing the Other. Their exhibits reflect their preoccupation with classification and typologies of all flavors. In a postcolonial situation, the Others speak, in a celebration of cultural diversity that has become an important aspect of modern museums, the challenge being to display cultural diversity with multiple voices without going against goals of national integration. Homogenization of multiple voices in the name of integration would not only result in the intellectual sterilization of the museum profession, but also do more disservice to the cause of national integration by silencing the dissenting imagination. By quoting experiments in recent years, Basa explains how today’s museum professionals in India live up to the nuanced challenge of displaying the dissenting imagination.

In Chapter 31, Subhash R. Walimbe reviews theoretical and methodological trends in South Asian bioarchaeology. His review of the research undertaken on human skeletons in South Asia covers the major lines of inquiry, their major conclusions, and is strongly focused on the anthropological significance of a bioarchaeological approach to the past. Walimbe describes the research prior to 1980 as a descriptive phase, primarily aimed at addressing research questions directly resulting from anthropology’s colonialist and racist origins. Post-1980 research is taken as an analytical and interpretive phase, where human biological variation is regarded as the net result of a highly complex interaction between genetic and nongenetic factors, including cultural and biological acclimatization, adjustment, and adaptation. On the basis of studies on nonmetric dental and skeletal variables, the author imagines biological continuity in the subcontinent during the last 10,000 years. He summarizes recent paleopathological research and its relevance in understanding protohistoric social complexity. He also recommends desired administrative and academic steps for further research in the discipline.

In Chapter 32, V. Mushrif-Tripathy and colleagues conclude the book by providing a very useful resource for students and scholars who will take up the mantle of future research in the bioarchaeology of the subcontinent. They provide an updated and comprehensive account of the human skeletal collections in India, their characteristics, current location, and major research citations. The primary objective of this chapter is to acquaint readers with the large number of human skeletal remains excavated from archaeological sites in India. The chapter serves as the most comprehensive and current inventory of archaeological human remains to date, with updates on the previous inventory compiled by Professor Kennedy in the early 1980s and with new data about more recently excavated sites. The data presented here was compiled from two journals, Ancient India (1946–1953) and its more recent incarnation, the Indian Archaeological Review (1953–1954 to 2003–2004). These two journals are where all excavation reports have traditionally been published. Information on sites excavated after 2004 is reported here based on personal communication. The authors provide information on the geographic location of the archaeological sites that have yielded human remains; the chronology of the sites, as reported in Ancient India and Indian Archaeological Review; the cultural-historical context of the burial phase; the excavation date and agency involved; the number of skeletal remains recovered, including numbers of immature and adult skeletons (wherever possible); the institution where the remains are stored; and the published bioarchaeological references for each collection (where available).

PART I

Paleoanthropology in South Asia

CHAPTER 2

Mammalian Paleodiversity and Ecology of Siwalik Primates in India and Nepal

Rajan Gaur

Introduction

Siwalik deposits of the Indian subcontinent rank among the world’s most famous for the diversity and profusion of mammalian fossils, including a variety of Neogene fossil primates such as lorisids, adapids, cercopithecoids, and hominoids. The freshwater Siwalik rocks have been assigned absolute dates from c. 18.3 mya (Johnson et al., 1985) to 0.22 mya (Ranga Rao et al., 1988). This chapter describes the diversity of fossil mammals from the Siwaliks of India and Nepal, and summarizes a reconstruction of the ecology and paleohabitats of the major primate fossil localities of India and Nepal based on an analysis of the mammalian fossil assemblages. Full coverage of this topic is not possible here and this chapter is thus focused on a description of the geomorphology and lithography of the fossiliferous localities, the primate fossils, and paleoecological reconstruction.

The Siwalik Deposits

The Siwaliks are comparable to the Fayum of Egypt and the African Rift Valley in terms of diversity and profusion of mammalian fossils. Consequently, this area is one of the most extensively explored freshwater rock sequences in the world. The Siwaliks span the political boundaries of Pakistan, India, Nepal and Bhutan. In the north, the deposit is bordered by the Lesser Himalaya and in the south by the Indo-Gangetic Plain. It consists of clay stones, sandstones, siltstones, and conglomerates of various hues and colors, which were deposited by the extensive riverine systems flowing southward from the Himalayas. These deposits are similar to sediments laid down by present-day rivers, such as the Ganges, except that they are uplifted, folded, faulted, and much more compacted.

The Himalaya is generally subdivided into four major lithotectonic units, which are, from north to south: the Tethyan Himalayan zone (TH); the Higher or Greater Himalayan zone (HH); the Lesser Himalayan zone (LH); and the Sub-Himalayan zone (SH) (Chirouze et al., 2012; Gansser, 1964; Upreti, 1999; Valdiya, 1980). The Siwalik Group of rocks forms a part of the Sub-Himalayan zone. Sediments in this zone are composed of fluvial material (Nakayama and Ulak, 1999; Tandon, 1976; Willis, 1993), which was deposited from Late Miocene to Late Pliocene times (DeCelles et al., 1998; Najman, 2006). The Siwaliks extend northwest to southeast along the Himalayan foothills for a distance of approximately 2400 km, from the Indus to the Brahmaputra river (Gaur, 1987). They range in width from 6 to 90 km. These deposits are widest in the west, with most extensive exposures in the Potwar Plateau of Pakistan, and they gradually become narrower to the east. At both extremes, the highlands turn south around the edges of the Indian plate and form the conspicuous Himalayan syntaxes (West et al., 1991).

Tectonic activity and ongoing erosion created a unique geomorphology in the Siwalik Hills—hogback ridges, valleys of various orders, ephemeral water channels that are active for a short while after rains (locally known as Choes), earth pillars, talus and colluvial cones, gorges and terraces (Mukerji, 1976). The area has acquired a high drainage density with rapid erosion and an overall topography similar to that of badlands (Howard, 1994). Traditionally, paleontologists follow Pilgrim’s (1913) biostratigraphic classification, which divides the Siwalik Group into three subgroups: lower, middle, and upper Siwalik. Each subgroup is divisible into formations: lower Siwalik subgroup—Kamlial Formation and Chinji Formation; middle Siwalik subgroup—Nagri Formation and Dhokpathan Formation; upper Siwalik subgroup—Tatrot Formation, Pinjor Formation, and Boulder Conglomerate Formation.

The Origin of the Siwaliks

The origin of the Siwalik deposits is inextricably linked to the origin of the Himalayas. In fact, Siwaliks form a part of the outermost range of the Himalaya commonly termed the Sub-Himalaya. Himalaya uplift is attributed to a collision between the Indian plate and the Asian plate that began in the Late Paleocene to Early Eocene (Dupont-Nivet et al., 2010; Yin and Harrison, 2000; Zhu et al., 2005), approximately 60 to 55 mya (Powell and Conagham, 1973), causing intense crustal shortening and imbrication of southward-displaced thrust sheets and resulting in the formation of the Himalayan mountain belt and the Tibetan Plateau (Hodges, 2000; Yin and Harrison, 2000); however, substantial crustal thickening of the Himalaya did not commence until the Late Oligocene to Early Miocene (Chamberlain et al., 1991; Harrison et al., 1992; Richter et al., 1991).

The elevation of the Himalayas probably caused slope instability (Scheidegger, 1999), leading to heavy erosion and runoff. Consequently, large amounts of continental molassic sediments, derived from the uplands, were deposited by rivers ancestral to the modern Indus, Ganges, Brahmaputra, and their large tributaries in a nearly continuous Himalayan foreland basin, stretching from northeast India to northwest Pakistan (Brookfield, 1993; Burbank et al., 1993; France-Lenord et al., 1993; Quade et al., 1995). However, some workers have suggested that the Siwalik foreland basin of Arunachal Pradesh was not connected to the Siwalik Basin of the western Himalaya (Rao, 1983; Sinha et al., 1982). These sediments, known informally as the Siwalik Group, preserve a continuous Late Neogene record of deposition by rivers (Quade et al., 1995).

Nepal Siwaliks

In the foothills of the Nepal Himalayas, the Siwaliks are commonly called the Churia Range (Corvinus and Rimal, 2001; Prasad and Pradhan, 1998). The Siwalik Group in Nepal (and western India) is about 5000 m thick (Gautam and Fujiwara, 2000; Ojha et al., 2009; White et al., 2001). It comprises a succession of grey mudstone, siltstone, and fine- to coarse-grained sandstone. Individual sand bodies form a coarsening and thickening upward succession (Chirouze et al., 2012), deposited from 15 mya to the Pleistocene (Gautam and Appel, 1994) on the scale of the entire Siwalik Group.

Mathur (1972) and Itihara et al. (1972) reported pollen and some plant fossils in the early 1970s but paleontological exploration of the Nepal Siwaliks did not commence in earnest until 1975 (Sharma, 1984; West et al., 1978). West and colleagues reported the first paleontological fieldwork in the Nepal Siwaliks in 1975 (Sharma, 1984). An American team carried out the first serious paleontological vertebrate fossil collection in the Dang Valley of western Nepal (West et al., 1978). They reported fish, reptilian, and mammalian taxa from 17 localities, tentatively assigned to lower Siwalik. This work was followed by paleontological reports describing diverse mammalian fauna from various localities in the Siwaliks of Nepal, particularly belonging to lower and middle Siwaliks (Corvinus, 1988; 1993; 1994; 2006; Corvinus and Nanda, 1994; Corvinus and Rimal, 2001; Corvinus and Schleich, 1994; Corvinus and Sharma, 1984; Munthe et al., 1983; West et al., 1991). The first evidence of a fossil hominoid from Nepal was an upper left molar of "Ramapithecus" (now assigned to Sivapithecus), reported by Munthe et al. (1983) from the Tinau Khola exposures north of Butwal.

Initially, correlations of the Siwaliks of Nepal with the Siwaliks of India and Pakistan were hampered by the poor exposures and lack of paleontological data. During the early stages of the Siwalik research in Nepal, the traditional tripartite lithostratigraphic division of lower, middle, and upper Siwaliks was commonly used (Auden, 1935; Hagen, 1969; Itihara et al., 1972; Lombard, 1958). Subsequent exploration in the Nepal Siwaliks has relied on the traditional threefold division (DMG, 1987; Gautam and Rosler, 1999; Hagen, 1969; Rosler et al., 1997; Tokuoka and Yoshida, 1984; Ulak, 2009; Yoshida and Arita, 1982) or has used different lithostratigraphic divisions mainly based on local terminology (Corvinus and Nanda, 1994; Dhital et al., 1995; Glennie and Ziegler, 1964; Sah et al., 1994; Sharma, 1977; Tokuoka et al., 1986; 1988; 1990; Ulak and Nakayama, 1998).

A Brief History of Paleontology in the Siwaliks

Officers of British colonial India made initial efforts to publish fossil mammals discovered in the Siwalik deposits beginning in the mid-1880s. The credit for the first scientific discovery of fossils from the Siwaliks goes to British army engineers Sir Proby Thomas Cautley and Captain Robert Smith. Cautley announced at a meeting of the Asiatic Society that he was collecting fossils near Dehradun in June 1831. Cautley is also credited with naming the outermost ranges of the Himalayas, Siwalik (Kennedy, 2000). Subsequently, Hugh Falconer joined him in his efforts to collect fossils; by 1835, they had developed a synopsis of the fossil vertebrate taxa collected from the Siwaliks (Cautley and Falconer, 1835). Scientific discoveries of fossil mammals from the Siwaliks began in the mid-1830s (e.g., Baker, 1834; 1835; Baker and Durand, 1836; Falconer, 1832; 1835; Cautley and Falconer, 1835; 1837; Falconer and Cautley, 1836a; 1836b; 1843–1844). However, the natives of the area had known the fossil bones for much longer as Bijli ki har, or lightning bones and had gathered them for their magical powers (Mayor, 2000). Webb (see Colbert, 1935), a geographer and explorer, was among the first to collect fossils from locals, which were described in Reliquae Diluviana (Buckland, 1823, cited in Gaur, 1987).

These early works were predominantly concerned with the description of taxa. Even in the second half of the nineteenth century, Lydekker (1876; 1880; 1881a; 1881b; 1884a; 1884b; 1898) was a major contributor to our knowledge of Siwalik fossil mammals but the work was largely descriptive. Pilgrim (1911; 1913; 1926; 1932; 1939), Matthew (1929), and Colbert (1935) were first to consider scientific topics like systematics, evolution, and the geological setting of the Neogene Siwalik mammals of the Indian subcontinent. It is only recently that questions concerning species diversity, the dynamics of faunal turnover, community structure, and paleoecological and paleoenvironmental conditions have been addressed.

Siwalik Fossil Primates

Since the mid-1830s, a variety of fossil primates have been discovered. These new fossils have contributed much to our understanding of the evolution and diversification of primates in general, and of South Asian hominoids in particular. The earliest record of a fossil primate from the Siwaliks is that of a cercopithecoid discovered in 1836 by Falconer and Cautley (De Terra and Paterson, 1939; Gaur, 1987). Since 1836, a number of primate taxa have been reported from the Siwaliks, including a lorisid (Nycteceboides), an adapid (Sivaladapis), cercopithecoid (Macaca, Presbytis, Procynocephalus, Theropithecus), and hominoid (Krishnapithecus, Indopithecus, Sivapithecus) genera. Of the various fossil apes, the most interesting history has been of "Ramapithecus," which was first reported by Lewis in 1934 (Lewis, 1934; 1937a; 1937b). The interest in this primate reached its peak when it was considered as a forerunner of Plio-Pleistocene hominids (Chopra, 1979; 1983; Chopra and Vasishat 1984; Conroy, 1972; Lewis, 1933; 1937a; 1937b; Prasad, 1982; Simons, 1961; 1964; 1976; Tattersall, 1975). However, subsequent investigators (Greenfield, 1979; Pilbeam, 1986) questioned the distinction between fossils labeled Ramapithecus and Sivapithecus; eventually, they synonymized it under Sivapithecus, where it stays until today.

Ramnagar (Jammu and Kashmir state), Haritalyangar and Dera-Ranital area (Himachal Pradesh state), upper Siwaliks east of Chandigarh (Haryana state), and Kalagarh area (Uttrakhand state) are among the most important fossil primate localities in South Asia. Of these localities, Ramnagar and the Haritalyangar basins have been the most prolific. In the Nepal Siwaliks, the most important fossil primate area is Tinau Khola. Paleoecological reconstruction of the aforesaid localities is based on the paleodiversity of fossil mammalian fauna. The major faunal turnovers, the dwindling of primate fauna over time, and the eventual extinction of the fossil apes is discussed below.

Mammalian Fossil Assemblages and Paleohabitats of Fossil Primates in the Siwaliks of India and Nepal

The paleoecological interpretation of the major fossil primate-bearing localities of the Siwaliks of India and Nepal provided in this chapter is based on an analysis of fossil mammalian assemblages known from various primate sites. The fossil mammalian fauna collected by the author, as well as those already known from various Siwalik localities, are considered here. The paleoecological reconstructions are based on habitat spectra analysis of the fossil mammals from the primate-yielding localities, following the protocols of Van Couvering (1980). Habitat spectra analysis is a sensitive method of paleohabitat reconstruction, which considers the morphology and the closeness of a fossil form to its nearest extant relative to deduce past ecological conditions. The method is based on two fundamental assumptions: (1) morphology of forms reflects habitat; and (2) the closer a fossil taxon is to a living taxon the greater the similarity between their habitats. In this chapter, the fossil species were assigned a range of possible habitats and given a weighting from 0 to 6 in accordance with the level of the lowest living classificatory category. The weighted total for each habitat type was then used to indicate the dominant habitats. The main localities considered here are: Ramnagar Basin (Jammu and Kashmir, India), Kalagarh Basin (Uttrakhand, India), Dera Gopipur–Ranital area (Himachal Pradesh, India), Haritalyangar Basin (Himachal Pradesh, India), upper Siwaliks east of Chandigarh (Haryana, India), and Tinau Khola area (Nepal).

Ramnagar Basin

Ramnagar Basin is located at 32.82° N and 75.32° E, near the town of Ramnagar in the Udhampur district of Jammu and Kashmir, India. It is a hilly area, having an average elevation of 828 m (2716 ft). Several Sivaladapis and Sivapithecus specimens have been recovered from this area, which happens to be the second most prolific hominoid locality in India. The fossiliferous Siwalik deposits of this basin have very close faunal and lithological resemblances to those of the Chinji type locality in the Potwar Plateau of Pakistan (Basu, 2004; Gaur and Chopra, 1983; Vasishat et al., 1978b). Chinji sediments here are actually better exposed than in Haritalyangar Basin. These deposits range in age from 11 to 13.8 mya (Basu, 2004; Sehgal and Patnaik, 2012; Vasishat et al., 1978b; 1979). The Chinji deposits here are represented by sequences of medium- to fine-grained grey, reddish, and reddish-brown sandstones, which alternate with dominant variegated clays (Vasishat et al., 1979). Around Ramnagar the Siwaliks present as successive north-northeast to south-southwest trending strike ridges, having long and gentle dip slopes and steep cliff faces that produce a typical cuesta topography (Basu, 2004). The fossiliferous interval is largely confined to the upper 350 m of the red-bed sequence of the lower Siwaliks (Basu, 2004).

In general, the lithology of the sediments is suggestive of a fluvial environment and low energy depositional conditions of laterally shifting rivers on a broad floodplain under oxidizing, warm, and probably humid climatic conditions (Gaur and Chopra, 1983). In a recent study, Pandita and Bhat (2012) have also concluded that the lower Siwalik Chinji sediments at Ramnagar were deposited by a flood flow-dominated meandering riverine system. The occurrence of several fossil gastropods, unionids, and crustaceans found from the lower Siwaliks at Ramnagar probably indicates the presence of localized water bodies on the floodplain (Gaur and Chopra, 1983).

The mammalian assemblage from the Chinji deposits at Ramnagar is of a mixed type but closed habitat forms dominate (Gaur and Chopra, 1983). The arboreal primates, such as Sivaladapis and Sivapithecus, suggest a dominant forested ecology. Forms such as Amphicyon, Vishnufelis, Deinotherium, Listriodon, gomphotherids, and so on support the occurrence of wooded conditions. The abundance of tragulids, namely Dorcabune and Dorcatherium, which formed about 10.4% of the vertebrate assemblage, reflect the presence of thick bush cover near watercourses, which served as the habitat for these chevrotains. The frequencies of various fossil vertebrate groups (Gaur and Chopra, 1983) indicate that mammals comprise about 49% of the fossil assemblage: reptiles, fish, and invertebrates (unionids, gastropods, and crustaceans) constitute 34.2%, 12.0%, and 2.4% of the assemblage, respectively. Among the reptiles, the crocodylids (23.0%) are better represented than the chelonids (11.2%). A profusion of poikilothermic reptilians (crocodylids and chelonids) is suggestive of warm conditions, as these forms are known to achieve profusion in warm and humid climates (Schwarzbach, 1963).

Carnivores, suids, rodents, tragulids, and bovids portray the maximum species diversity. Gaur and Chopra (1983) reported better representation for tragulids, suids, and bovids (7.2%). A greater diversity of tragulids along with anthracotheres probably indicates forest cover and somewhat wet conditions. The occurrence of several taxa of small to medium-sized hominoids along with adapids suggest a more closed and forest-dominated habitat. Most of the Ramnagar bovids, particularly Protragocerus and Miotragocerus, are small to medium-sized browsers and their occurrence probably suggests a dominant closed habitat with forest cover. According to Kappelman (1991), Protragocerus relied more on the closed cover end of the habitat spectrum including woodlands and forests. The occurrence of a more closed habitat is also supported by the absence of typical open country and cursorial forms in the Ramnagar assemblage. The landscape 11 to 13 mya ago had a dominant closed forest ecology with less dominant woodlands and subordinate bushland. Thus, overall, the Ramnagar Chinji mammalian fauna indicates more closed cover conditions, such as dense woodlands. On the whole, the paleoecology of Chinji deposits at Ramnagar is similar to that of Chinji localities of Pakistan, which also appear to suggest more uniformly forested conditions with a continuous canopy (Gaur and Chopra, 1983; Scott et al., 1999).

Kalagarh Basin

The lower Siwaliks of Kalagarh Basin in the Pauri Garhwal district of the state of Uttrakhand in India are covered with dense vegetation. There are limited exposures for survey, which are mostly along the streams and nala cuttings. The Miocene fossil hominoid locality of this basin is in the upper part of the lower Siwaliks, that is, Upper Chinjis (Cameron et al., 1999; Sahni and Tiwari, 1979; Sahni et al., 1983) and may range in age between 10 and 11 mya (Cameron et al., 1999). The lower Siwalik fossil faunal assemblage for this area is poor, with much less diversity and richness compared to the Ramnagar Basin.

The hominid fossil localities of Kalagarh are located in the Dhara Reserve Forest area and may belong to the upper part of the Chinji or the lower part of the Nagri, approximately 11 and 10 mya respectively (Cameron et al., 1999). Lithologically speaking, reddish, brownish, and greenish clays and calcareous greenish-grey to brownish sandstones dominate the soil profile in the Kalagarh area (Cameron et al., 1999). The calcareous cement of these deposits probably suggests a warm climate.

Sahni and colleagues (1974; 1980; 1983), Sahni and Tiwari (1979), and Tiwari and Kumar (1984) reported a small hominoid upper molar from the Dhara locality of Kalagarh area, which they attributed to Ramapithecus punjabicus; subsequently, it was referred to as Sivapithecus sivalensis by Cameron and colleagues (1999). Another hominoid specimen, a lower premolar, was reported from the Nungarh locality of Kalagarh area (Tiwari, 1982) and interpreted as a left third premolar by Cameron and colleagues (1999), but recently Pickford and Tiwari (2010) identified this tooth as an upper lateral incisor from a large carnivore (possibly an amphicyonid).

The abundance of reptiles at Kalagarh (Sahni and Tiwari, 1979) suggests a warm and humid climate as these cold-blooded animals reach maximum profusion under warmer climates. The hominoid, along with Viverra, indicates a dominant forested habitat. The occurrence of low-skulled suids in this assemblage indicates a closed habitat with abundant bush cover. The gomphotheres and Deinotherium had teeth suited to succulent vegetation. The anthracotheres (Anthracotherium and Hyoboops) probably had a niche similar to modern Hippopotamus, indicating the presence of large slow-moving streams with adjoining areas supporting abundant vegetation. The occurrence of tragulid taxa, namely Dorcabune and Dorcatherium, at Kalagarh is suggestive of a well-watered landscape with sufficient bush cover near watercourses, which is similar to that of Ramnagar.

Prasad (1993) reported 11 fossils of wood species from the Siwalik sediments of the Kalagarh area in the Pauri Garhwal district of Uttar Pradesh, India. The fossil assemblage showed affinities with present-day Dipterocarpus tuberculatus and Hopea wightiana (Dipterocarpaceae), Sterculia coccinea and S. urens (Sterculiaceae), Bursera serrata (Burseraceae), Euphorea longana (Sapindaceae), Dialium indum and Millettia sp. (Fabaceae), Diospyros candoleana (Ebenaceae), and Artocarpus heterophylla and Ficus bengalensis (Moraceae). The fossil flora of Kalagarh indicates that tropical evergreen forests with rare moist deciduous plants were flourishing around Kalagarh during the Middle Miocene in contrast to the mixed deciduous type of the present-day forests.

It is clear from the habitat spectra of Kalagarh mammals that this landscape basically supported a forest ecology. However, unlike Ramnagar where forests dominated, the dominant vegetation at Kalagarh was woodland, followed by forests, wooded grasslands, and bushlands. In general, the mammalian fauna of the Kalagarh area indicates the occurrence of a well-watered forested landscape with dominant woodland and some wooded savannah. The landscape was probably somewhat more open than at Ramnagar.

Dera Gopipur–Ranital area

Another primate-yielding area in the Indian Siwaliks is the Dera Gopipur–Ranital Basin of Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh state. It is not a very well-known fossil locality but several specimens of hominoid fossils have been reported from this area. Pandey and Sastri (1968) described a large partial right mandible of Sivapithecus lewisi from Bandal, near Dera Gopipur. Gupta (1969) described two fossil specimens referred to as Sivapithecus indicus from Chinji deposits three miles east of Bandal, Himachal Pradesh. These two specimens have recently been re-examined and identified as belonging to a suid (Propotamochoerus hysudricus) rather than a hominoid (Pickford and Tiwari, 2010). Gupta and colleagues (1979; 1982) reported seven hominoid teeth (Ramapithecus, cf. punjabicus) from an area in the Ranital Siwalik belt northwest of Dera Gopipur, near Mangarh in Kangra district, Himachal Pradesh, India. However, the locality is disputed for these fossils. Verma and colleagues (2002) describe it as a Chinji deposit, 1.5 km south of Bankhandi, northwest of Dera Gopipur. Pickford and Tiwari recently attributed these seven specimens to Sivapithecus hysudricus (2010), mainly due to their small size. Chopra and Vasishat (1984) reported Sivaladapis from near Bandal. The nature of the deposits and the mammalian fauna recovered from this area, particularly Hipparion, indicate that the Siwaliks exposed here probably belong to the Nagri Formation. On the basis of lithological and sedimentological parameters, the occurrence of a large floodplain with a mature meandering riverine system and the prevalence of generally warm and humid and oxidizing environmental conditions were inferred for the Nagri deposits of this area (Gaur et al., 1983a).

The diversity of fossil vertebrate fauna from the Dera–Ranital area is limited but still consists of several mammalian taxa (Gaur et al., 1983b). The fossils of reptiles (chelonids and crocodilids) are more numerous than of mammals and this suggest a generally warm climate (Gaur et al., 1983a). The medium-sized browsers, such as Deinotherium, Propotamochoerus, Anthracotherium, Dorcabune, Protragocerus, Miotragocerus, Hipparion, and so on, are better represented in the Dera–Ranital assemblage, reflecting the presence of a dominant woodland habitat. The presence of Hipparion, which shows some cursorial adaptations in its limb structure, might suggest a more open nature of the woodlands. The presence of several tragulid taxa (Dorcatherium, Dorcabune) are indicative of bushy undergrowth, particularly near the watercourses. The conditions in this area were broadly similar to those prevailing in the Haritalyangar Basin during Nagri times. The habitat spectra of Dera–Ranital mammals are suggestive of a habitat mainly composed of woodlands, with significant amount of forests and some bush cover.

Haritalyangar Basin

Haritalyangar Basin in the Himachal Pradesh state of India is the best-known and most prolific area for primate fossils. Some of the best specimens of several Siwalik fossil primate taxa, namely Sivaladapis, Krishnapithecus, Sivapithecus, Indopithecus (Gigantopithecus), have been reported from the middle Siwalik deposits of this basin. Apart from primates, the basin has also yielded a plethora of fossil mammalian taxa from the middle Siwalik Nagri and Dhokpathan formations. Sankhyan (1985) reported a Sivapithecus tooth from west of Bharari and 2 km east of Haritalyangar, and claimed it was the youngest hominoid fossil from India, dated to 5.5 mya. However, Pillans and colleagues (2005) reinterpreted the paleomagnetic data for the Haritalyangar succession, which was used to determine the age of the specimen, using the geomagnetic polarity timescale of Brozovic and Burbank (2000); they found that the R7 polarity chron from which the Bharari molar is reported to have been collected (Sankhyan, 1985) would be about 8.1 mya (Pickford and Tewari, 2010). According to Pickford and Tewari (2010), Sankhyan (1985) probably misnumbered the chrons above R6 and the Bharari tooth should probably belong to R8 rather than R7. They further point out that, with this adjustment, the age of the tooth could be about 8 mya to 7.5 mya, and that an age of 5.5 mya for the Bharari Sivapithecus tooth appears to be far too young for it. From this discussion, it emerges that the Bharari Sivapithecus could be from the Dhokpathan deposits.

Haritalyangar Nagri fauna

The Nagri fauna at Haritalyangar is characterized by a variety of small to medium-sized mammals. The abundance of primates—Indoadapis, Sivaladapis, Indraloris, Krishnapithecus, and Sivapithecus—clearly indicates a wooded habitat. The greater frequency (18.1%) and variety of tragulids during Nagris suggests a moderate bush cover (Prasad, 1970). The bushy undergrowth is also supported by low-skulled suids (Propotamochoerus). The frequency of bovids, consisting largely of boselaphines with nonhypsodont teeth devoid of cement and suitable for browsing, is less and their presence also indicates a woodland habitat. The Nagri forms showing savannah adaptations are the giraffids (Giraffokeryx, Hydaspitherium, and Vishnutherium). However, these forms are not very abundant in the assemblage. The only Nagri forms to indicate a grazing adaptation are the hipparionids (Hipparion and Cormohipparion), whose occurrence indicates some grass-covered areas and the relatively open nature of the woodlands. The tragulids continue their presence in the Nagris, though not as abundantly as in the Chinji Formation at Ramnagar. In comparison to the Chinji mammalian fauna at Ramnagar, the Nagri mammalian fauna of Haritalyangar suggests a faunal change, with the introduction of more open habitat taxa such as Hipparion, medium-sized bovids such as Selenoportax, Pachyportax, Tragocerus, and carnivores (Crocuta) and giraffids (Hydaspatherium and Vishnutherium). According to Kappelman (1991), larger bovids often inhabit more open habitats. The frequency of chelonids in the Nagris is higher than that of the Dhokpathans (Vasishat et al., 1978a), which may point toward a more humid and warmer climate than the subsequent Dhokpathans.

The habitat spectrum of Nagri mammals at Haritalyangar indicates a dominant woodland habitat. The other important components of the Nagri landscape were the forests, wooded grasslands, and bushland, in decreasing order. The occurrence of large numbers of taxa from wooded grasslands further indicates the more open nature of the woodlands. By Nagri times, the thick forests and woodlands of Chinji times had broken down and became more open, possibly as a result of the increased seasonality of the climate caused by the continuous uplifting of the Himalayas, which gave rise to a seasonal monsoon type of climate.

Haritalyangar Dhokpathan fauna

The characteristic Dhokpathan faunal assemblage is very different from that of the poor primate fauna representation of the Nagris. The nature of the mammalian fauna indicates a reduction in the forest cover and the appearance of a more open landscape. The most abundant of the Dhokpathan mammals are the hipparionids, which form nearly 50% of the Dhokpathan mammalian assemblage (Prasad, 1970). For example, the Dhokpathan pongid, Indopithecus (previously Gigantopithecus), was a large animal probably adapted to a terrestrial mode of life. The abundance of these cursorial grazers probably reflects a more open savannah-type habitat during Dhokpathans. The proboscideans become more abundant during Dhokpathan, some of which (e.g., Stegolophodon) show adaptations to harsher vegetation in their dentition. The browsing bovids became less abundant during Dhokpathans. On the whole, the Dhokpathan fauna suggests the breaking down of woodlands and the appearance of savannahs with some tree cover (wooded savannahs). The occurrence of grazing mammals further suggests that some grassland-type areas were also present and that grasses had become a significant part of the Dhokpathan vegetation.

The habitat spectra of Dhokpathan mammalian fauna at Haritalyangar reveal a dominance of wooded grassland and grassland with a significant reduction in woodlands. The fragmentation of the Nagri woodlands into wooded grasslands during Dhokpathans was probably a consequence of increasing aridity and seasonality of the climate. The rarity of hominoids in Dhokpathans may be related to the shrinking of the woodlands, which constituted the main habitat of hominoids during Nagri and Chinji times.

Upper Siwaliks

Pinjor and Boulder Conglomerate Formations are located in the area north and east of Chandigarh. Cercopithecoid primate fauna has been reported from primate-yielding upper Siwaliks exposed in the area north, east, and southeast of Chandigarh. The primate taxa reported from this area include the cercopithecoids Procynocephalus subhimalayanus and Theropithecus delsoni. Though Theropithecus delsoni has been recorded from the Boulder Conglomerate Formation near Mirzapur in