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Re: Ad Yurii Gloriam (Was Re: maize in ancient india: strong
In article <5br3dr$q0@nnrp1.toronto.ican.net> yuku@io.org (Yuri Kuchinsky) writes:
>burglin@ubaclu.unibas.ch wrote:
>: Yuri, sometimes I wonder if you read any of the posts. It has been
>:explained to you many times that : when an archeological excavation is
>:performed, EVERYTHING is excavated.
>
>Thomas,
>
>You sound as clued out as ever. It's really no fun discussing things with
>you because everything has to be explained to you twice... and slowly...
>This is the main reason why I rarely reply to your rancorous postings.
>
>Please indicate to me which Hoysala settlements of 12th or 13th century
>were excavated, when, and by who, and what kinds of plant remains were
>found there. If you don't know, please admit that you're simply babbling.
>
>Yuri.
Well, Yuri you are actually changing your line a bit here. Before you
seemed to be claiming that no one has specifically gone out looking
for corn cobs in India so none were found (at least that's how I and
many others interpreted your comments). I thought we were all working
under the assumption that at least some Late Historic Indian sites had
been excavated, but you seem to be questioning that here.
Even though I believe the focus of most Indian archaeology has been
for earlier sites (like Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro) - just as most New
World archaeology focuses on Precolumbian, rather than Postcolumbian
sites - I find it hard to believe that no one has been excavating such
sites. So I figured I'd do a bit of checking - but not much.
Seems that a guy by the name of Shri Gosh was working on a compendium
of archaeological excavations in India when he died in 1981. The
volume finally got published as "An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology"
in 1989 (so its a bit dated now). Here's a little of what it says right
up front:
"In the post-Independence period the tempo of archaeological field-
work increased considerably and COVERED ALL PERIODS OF HUMAN
CULTURE." (p. xiv)
"Prehistoric investigations adopted new approaches, working on
geomorphology palaeontology, PALAEOBOTANY, and palaeo-climatology" (p. xiv)
"On [the] protohistoric and HISTORIC SIDE, CULTURAL SEQUENCES
SUPPORTED BY A CHRONOLOGICAL FRAME-WORK, OBTAINED THROUGH
CAREFULLY OBSERVED VERTICAL EXCAVATIONS, ARE NOW AVAILABLE
FOR ALL PARTS OF THE COUNTRY." (p. xiv)
"The focus has shifted from the concern for ascertaining the bare
culture-sequence to RECOVERING OR RECONSTRUCTING THE COMPLETE
LIFE PATTERN" (p. xv)
Seems to me that if by the late 1970s they were already excavating
historic sites and looking at dietary remains, I see no reason why
this process should have discontinued.
My library is very scanty on topics related to Indian archaeology but
I was able to find the following book - "Palaeoethnobotany, plants and
ancient man in Kashmir." Farooq A. Lone, ed. 1993. This book reports
on a study of plant remains from sites in Kashmir spanning the time
period from 2600 B.C. to 900 A.D. (guess what no maize). While that is
a tad earlier that the 12th to 13th century time period you specify
above, it should be noted that Johannessen & Parker also claimed that
maize was in India substantially prior to that.
A search of an anthropological database also turned up a number of
reports of botanical studies and excavations at Indian sites. Most
of these come from two periodicals (Puratattva & Man and Environment)
which my library doesn't carry so I can't verify the time periods in
question.
But given this information which I found in just an hour or two of
poking about I think its pretty safe to assume that excavations and
botanical studies are being carried out at Late Historic sites in India.
Still got a problem with that?
Peter van Rossum
PMV100@PSU.EDU
References: