Kitchen gardens, wild forage and tree fruits: A hypothesis on the role of the Zaid season in the indus civilisation (c.3200-1300 BCE)

Abstract

The nature of agriculture in the Indus Civilisation of South Asia (c.3200-1300 BCE) remains a topic of intense debate. Traditional models of Indus agriculture have been built on the assumption that it was divided into two cropping seasons: rabi (centred on the winter Western Disturbance) and kharif (focused on exploiting the Indian Summer Monsoon). This paper endeavours to unpack this assumption by looking to modern agricultural strategies. Through this approach the nuanced possibilities open to ancient farmers can be explored and a third cropping season is introduced, the hot dry summer season, also called zaid. Zaid cropping occurs between rabi and kharif in the modern agricultural round. This paper argues Indus archaeology needs to consider the importance of South Asian definitions of seasonality and cropping in its models. Instead of the western notion of winter/summer, this paper explores the idea of rabi/zaid/kharif (winter/dry summer/monsoonal summer) in the archaeological context. The paper reviews the archaeobotanical data and hypothesises that Indus farmers had the potential to exploit the zaid cropping season, and that Indus agricultural strategies may, as a result have been even more complex than currently modelled. This is part of a growing pattern in Indus archaeobotanical studies which are demonstrating the possible nuances of Indus farming and plant exploitation strategies. The zaid hypothesis has implications for how Indus agriculture fits into wider debates surrounding of adaptation, intensification, sustainability and resilience in the face of social, economic and environmental change.