To waste or not to waste: a multi-proxy analysis of human-waste interaction and rural waste management in Indus Era Gujarat

Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-024-02046-w (2024) 16:141 RESEARCH To waste or not to waste: a multi-proxy analysis of human-waste interaction and rural waste management in Indus Era Gujarat Kalyan Sekhar Chakraborty1,2 · Sheahan Bestel3 · Mary Lucus2 · Patrick Roberts2 · Prabodh Shirvalkar4 · Yadubirsingh Rawat5 · Thomas Larsen2 · Heather M. -L. Miller6 Received: 3 August 2023 / Accepted: 17 July 2024 © The Author(s) 2024 Abstract Waste management is paramount to town planning and ancient civilizations across the world have spent resources and mobilized labor for waste disposal and reuse. The study of waste management practices offers a unique window into the daily lives, social organization, and environmental interactions of ancient societies. In the Indus Valley Civilization, known for its urban planning, understanding waste disposal in rural settlements provides crucial insights into the broader socio-economic landscape. While extensive research has documented sophisticated waste management systems in urban Indus centers, little is known about practices in rural settlements. This gap limits our understanding of regional variations and rural-urban dynamics within the civilization. In this paper, using isotopic and microscopic proxies, we characterize the waste disposed of at the rural Indus settlement of Kotada Bhadli to reconstruct the sources of waste, including heated animal dung, and burned vegetation. We propose that rural agro-pastoral settlements in Gujarat during the Indus Era systematically discarded such waste in specific locations. By characterizing waste produced at Kotada Bhadli, we are also able to reconstruct the natural environment and how the natural and cultural landscape around the settlement was exploited by the residents of the settlement for their domestic and occupational needs. Our identification of the attention paid to waste disposal by the inhabitants of Kotada Bhadli adds significant data to our understanding of waste disposal as an insight into past lives. Keywords Indus Valley civilization · Waste management · Sediment · Phytoliths · Spherulite · Carbon isotope · Nitrogen isotope Introduction Kalyan Sekhar Chakraborty ; 1 Department of History, Ashoka University, Sonipat, Haryana 131029, India 2 Department of Archaeology, Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, Jena, Germany 3 Independent Researcher, Melbourne, Australia 4 Department of Ancient Indian History and Archaeology, Deccan College Postgraduate and Research Insititute, Pune, India 5 Director General Archaeological Survey of India, New Delhi, India 6 Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto, Mississauga, ON, Canada The way in which societies have created, defined, managed, and disposed of waste is critical to understanding human settlement patterns across space and time. Indeed, as archaeologists, our work often revolves around discarded objects, rather than their production and usage contexts (Shanks et al. 2004; Sosna and Brunclíková 2017). Waste encompasses discarded artefacts or portions thereof, food remains, unwanted materials, and detrital materials either lost accidentally or discarded intentionally (Schiffer 1996). Waste can be disposed of immediately or recycled and reused at different times and possibly by different people. Moreover, what constitutes waste is socially defined and culturally mitigated (Reno 2014). In this context, archaeological research can shed light on a society’s perception of waste, how waste was symbolically constructed (Douglas 2003), how the materiality of waste was valued (Thompson 2017), 13 141 Page 2 of 22 as well as how people may have recycled resources from socio-culturally as well as politically categorized wastes (Alexander and O’Hare 2020). Archaeological investigation of waste can help reconstruct human actions and beliefs (social, cultural and economic) related to waste, including actors who were involved in the production, processing and managment of that waste. Comprehending waste disposal is equally as vital as understanding what constitutes waste. By studying how and where wastes were discarded, we can evaluate the efforts and resources mobilized in their disposal within or outside of settlements. Waste disposal often occurs in defined places that are determined by cultural as well as political-economic practices (Alexander and O’Hare 2020; Rathje and Murphy 2001). Exploring waste disposal practices in ancient societies allows us to understand past human interactions with space and how meanings were created and attributed to these spaces. Space, an important cultural medium, allows individuals to culturally organize and undertake social, aesthetic, political, and religious or ceremonial practices (Aucoin 2017). The culture-space relationship is dynamic and can vary both regionally and temporally. The ability to archaeologically investigate the association between waste and waste disposal areas can help in reconstructing the lived experience of a place and the spatial practices within a landscape. Investigating this association at an archaeological Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences (2024) 16:141 site like Kotada Bhadli is crucial for evaluating how rural space was assigned, managed and modified during the Indus period and how such practices varied from those in the much more densely populated urban settlements. This study addresses the lack of knowledge about waste management in rural Indus settlements by examining the Indus Valley or Harappan Civilization site of Kotada Bhadli in Gujarat between the third and second millennium BCE. Specifically, we ask: What types of waste were produced and how were they disposed of? How do waste composition and disposal practices reflect the settlement’s economy and social organization? How do these practices compare to those in urban centers? To answer these questions, we employ a multi-proxy approach combining archaeological context analysis, radiocarbon dating, phytolith and spherulite analysis, and stable isotope analysis of sediments. This multidisciplinary approach allows us to characterize waste composition, identify disposal patterns, and infer aspects of the settlement’s economy and environmental interactions. By examining waste management practices at Kotada Bhadli, this study aims to provide new insights into rural lifeways during the Indus period and contribute to our understanding of regional variations within the civilization. The paper proceeds by describing the site and its context, detailing our methodological approach, presenting results from multiple analyses, and discussing their implications for understanding rural Indus settlements. Waste management during the Indus era in South Asia Fig. 1 Distribution of sites mentioned in the text, the shaded area showing the approximate extent of Mature Harappan Period sites 13 The Indus Valley or the Harappan Civilization was one of the oldes (...truncated)