Remote Sensing Soils and Social Geographies of Difference: The Landscape Archaeology of Regur from Iron Age through Medieval Period Northern Karnataka, Southern India

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper combines analyses of Landsat 8 multispectral data with textual records and diachronic low-density artifact distributions to evaluate how soil differences were incorporated into cultural landscapes around the multicomponent site of Maski, southern India. Spatial analysis indicates that Iron Age (1200–300 b.c.) and Early Historic Period (300 b.c.–a.d. 500) inhabitants differentiated soil types and used more water-retentive, clay-rich soils (regur) for agriculture and sandier soils for locations of metals production. Similar distinctions between soil types are evident in Medieval Period (a.d. 500–1600) inscriptions, but artifact distributions indicate that some inhabitants used less desirable sandier soils for agriculture during the period. Taken together, the distribution, remote sensing, and inscriptional data suggest that social inequalities in access to more valued soils contributed to a socially differentiated landscape by at least the 14th century a.d. and point to the combined role of archaeology and remote sensing to complement and interrogate the historical record.