Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Harappan food pattern
Mains level: Not Much
The National Museum in New Delhi has hosted “The Indus dining experience” a food event based on the food pattern of Indus valley civilization.
Food of Harappans
- Archaeological evidence from Indus Valley sites (c. 3300 BC to 1300 BC) in present-day India and Pakistan suggests that a purely vegetarian meal will not provide a complete picture of what the Harappan people ate.
- To judge from the quantity of bones left behind, animal foods were consumed in abundance: beef, buffalo, mutton, turtles, tortoises, gharials, and river and sea fish.
- Apart from meat, the people of the Indus Valley Civilisation grew and ate a variety of cereals and pulses.
- There is archaeological evidence for cultivation of pea (matar), chickpea (chana), pigeon pea (tur/arhar), horse gram (chana dal) and green gram (moong).
- Several varieties of wheat have been found at Harappan sites, as well as barley of the two-rowed and six-rowed kinds.
- There is evidence that the Harappans cultivated Italian millet, ragi and amaranth, as well as sorghum and rice.
- Oilseeds such as sesame, linseed, and mustard were also grown.
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