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<p>Notes on Contributors x</p> <p>Acknowledgments xvii</p> <p>Formal Dedication xviii<br /><i>V.N. Misra</i></p> <p>Foreword xx<br /><i>Angela R. Lieverse</i></p> <p>Maps xxvi</p> <p>1 Introduction 1<br /><i>Gwen Robbins Schug and Subhash R. Walimbe</i></p> <p><b>Part I Paleoanthropology in South Asia 11</b></p> <p>2 Mammalian Paleodiversity and Ecology of Siwalik Primates in India and Nepal 13<br /><i>Rajan Gaur</i></p> <p>3 A Decade of Paleoanthropology in the Indian Subcontinent (2005–2015) 32<br /><i>Parth R. Chauhan</i></p> <p>4 Archaic Genomes and the Peopling of South Asia 51<br /><i>Mark Stoneking</i></p> <p>5 Out of Africa and into South Asia: The Evidence from Paleolithic Archaeology 60<br /><i>Ravi Korisettar</i></p> <p>6 Hominin Fossil Remains from the Narmada Valley 72<br /><i>A.R. Sankhyan</i></p> <p>7 Mesolithic Foragers of the Ganges Plain and Adjoining Hilly Regions of the Vindhyas 86<br /><i>J.N. Pal</i></p> <p>8 Mesolithic Foragers of the Ganges Plain: Pathology, Stature, and Subsistence 101<br /><i>John R. Lukacs</i></p> <p><b>Part II Middle Holocene Farmers and Urban Dwellers 125</b></p> <p>9 Current Perspectives on the Harappan Civilization 127<br /><i>Vasant Shinde</i></p> <p>10 Excavations at Harappa, 1986–2010: New Insights on the Indus Civilization and Harappan Burial Traditions 145<br /><i>J.M. Kenoyer and R.H. Meadow</i></p> <p>11 Bioarchaeology of the Indus Valley Civilization: Biological Affinities, Paleopathology, and Chemical Analyses 169<br /><i>Nancy C. Lovell</i></p> <p>12 More than Origins: Refining Migration in the Indus Civilization 187<br /><i>Benjamin Valentine</i></p> <p>13 Aryans and the Indus Civilization: Archaeological, Skeletal, and Molecular Evidence 205<br /><i>Michel Danino</i></p> <p>14 The Ahar Culture and Others: Social Spectrums of the Mewar Plain 225<br /><i>Teresa P. Raczek</i></p> <p>15 The Archaeology of the Late Holocene on the Deccan Plateau (The Deccan Chalcolithic) 240<br /><i>Prabodh Shirvalkar and Esha Prasad</i></p> <p>16 The Center Cannot Hold: A Bioarchaeological Perspective on Environmental Crisis in the Second Millennium bce, South Asia 255<br /><i>Gwen Robbins Schug and Kelly Elaine Blevins</i></p> <p>17 The “Gandhara Grave Culture”: New Perspectives on Protohistoric Cemeteries in Northern and Northwestern Pakistan 274<br /><i>Muhammad Zahir</i></p> <p><b>Part III Historic Archaeology: Monuments and Meaning 295</b></p> <p>18 Early Iron Age Megalith Builders of Vidarbha: A Historical View 297<br /><i>P.S. Joshi</i></p> <p>19 Situating Iron Age Monuments in South India: A Textual and Ethnographic Approach 310<br /><i>K. Rajan</i></p> <p>20 A Review of Early Historic Urbanization in India 319<br /><i>Reshma Sawant and Gurudas Shete</i></p> <p>21 Historical and Medieval Period Archaeology 332<br /><i>Monica L. Smith</i></p> <p>22 The Transition to Agricultural Production in India: South Asian Entanglements of Domestication 344<br /><i>Charlene A. Murphy and Dorian Q. Fuller</i></p> <p>23 From Millet to Rice (and Back Again?): Cuisine, Cultivation, and Health in Southern India 358<br /><i>Kathleen D. Morrison</i></p> <p>24 Death and Burial among Two Ancient High?]Altitude Communities of Nepal 374<br /><i>Mark Aldenderfer and Jacqueline T. Eng</i></p> <p><b>Part IV South Asia in Retrospect 399</b></p> <p>25 Prehistoric Archaeology in Bangladesh: An Overview 401<br /><i>Shahnaj Husne Jahan</i></p> <p>26 Archaeology of Nepal 412<br /><i>Prakash Darnal</i></p> <p>27 The Peopling of Sri Lanka from Prehistoric to Historic Times: Biological and Archaeological Evidence 426<br /><i>Samanti Kulatilake</i></p> <p>28 Theoretical Archaeology in India: An Anthropological Perspective 437<br /><i>K. Paddayya</i></p> <p>29 Moving Forward, Looking Back: The Collective Memory of Indian Anthropology 450<br /><i>Abhik Ghosh</i></p> <p>30 Anthropology and Museums in India 465<br /><i>Kishor K. Basa</i></p> <p>31 Human Skeletal Studies: Changing Trends in Theoretical and Methodological Perspectives 482<br /><i>Subhash R. Walimbe</i></p> <p>32 Where Are They Now? The Human Skeletal Remains from India 496<br /><i>V. Mushrif-Tripathy, K.S. Chakraborty, and S. Lahiri</i></p> <p>Index 534</p>

<p><b>Gwen Robbins Schug</b> is an Associate Professor of biological anthropology at Appalachian State University (Boone, NC). She is the author of <i>Bioarchaeology and Climate Change: A View from South Asian Prehistory</i> (2011). Her research has been widely published in academic journals and covered in <i>Science Magazine, National Geographic, Science Daily, The New Yorker Magazine, </i>and <i>The New York Times</i>.</p> <b>Subhash Walimbe</b> was Professor of biological anthropology at Deccan College Post-Graduate Research Institute and the Head of Department at Pune University before retiring in 2010. He is the author of nine books and more than 80 research articles on South Asian prehistory. His research has been funded by National Geographic, Smithsonian Institution, and the Ford Foundation, among others. He serves on the advisory committee to several Indian Universities and the Government of India research establishments.

<p><i>A Companion to South Asia in the Past </i>provides a thorough description of research on South Asia’s past, from the Pleistocene to the historic era in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka Bangladesh and Nepal. The chapters describe the peopling of South Asia, archaeological and bioarchaeological perspectives on human biocultural diversity in the subcontinent, and points of entry for understanding the meaning of complex phenomena observable in the South Asian context, from urbanism to monument-construction, economic exchange relationships to commodity cult. The authors cover the history of research, major theoretical concerns, current insights, and future challenges for the next generation of scholars working in this region.</p> <p>Contributions are provided by a truly global range of experts—more than 40 scholars from Bangladesh, Canada, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, UK, and USA—from a variety of sub-disciplinary backgrounds, including palaeoanthropology, archaeology, archaeogenetics, bioarchaeology, isotopic analysis, and history. The diversity of scholarly training represented in this volume provides fresh and sometimes critical perspectives on archaeology and anthropology in South Asia. The result is a volume that provides a unique and definitive resource for anthropologists, South Asianists, and students of these disciplines. </p>

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