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Abstract
Archaeoparasitology is a study to acquire data concerning the parasite infection of ancient people through the examination of the specimens obtained in the excavation sites. Although this research has achieved many successes worldwide, there has been few noteworthy reports from South Asia countries. In 2011 to 2016, we thus conducted parasite examinations on Indian archaeological specimens (n = 247) collected at excavation sites of Mature Harappan period (4600–3900 BP) and their contemporary rural Chalcolithic sites. To derive effective strategy of archaeoparasitological works in Indian Subcontinent, our data were analyzed together with previous clinical report on the soil transmitted helminth infection in the Indian Subcontinent. We propose that future paleoparasitological studies in India should be conducted more intensely on ancient specimens from the states of Assam, Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal etc.
Highlights
About several thousand years ago, the urban societies flourished in the Gaggar-Hakra and Indus river basin and coastal regions of Northwest India as a symbol of the splendid Harappan civilization (Singh 2009: 132–181)
The specimens were sampled from the remains of fortification wall, mound, residential place, water channel, reservoir, bath, street sewage, drains, water line, and burials etc. considering that ancient parasite eggs were commonly reported to be found in the specimens of such facilities or structures (Seo et al 2016: 555–563; Shin et al 2009: 2534–2539; Shin et al 2011: 3555–3559; Shin et al 2013: 208–213; Shin et al 2014: 569–573; Shin et al 2015: 458–461; Kim et al 2016: 80–86; Shin et al 2018: e53)
Since parasitic eggs were not found in the surface soil, the contamination of the soil at the excavation site by modern parasite eggs could be ruled out
Summary
About several thousand years ago, the urban societies flourished in the Gaggar-Hakra and Indus river basin and coastal regions of Northwest India as a symbol of the splendid Harappan civilization (Singh 2009: 132–181). By performing analysis on the parasitological samples from archeological sites, the ancient human population’s parasitic infection pattern could be grasped vividly. By interpreting it from socio-cultural perspectives, the data became indispensable for archaeologists to understand the interaction between nature, mankind and society in history (Seo et al 2014: 235–242; Seo et al 2016: 555–563). Despite these achievements, parasitological studies on ancient specimens have been rarely conducted in South Asia, especially in India. For the past several years, we tried to do archaeoparasitological investigations on the samples of Mature Harappan (4600–3900 BP) and contemporary Chalcolithic period (Kenoyer 1998; Shinde 2002: 157–188) sites of India
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