South Asian Prehistoric Human Skeletal Remains and Burial Practices

Abstract

South Asia is assuming a frontier position with respect to recent advances in human paleontology, skeletal biology, paleodemography, and paleoecology. For many years the exclusive preserve of archaeological investigation, the Indian subcontinent is now yielding a prehistoric skeletal record that promises to answer many questions of a biological and demographic nature that the study of the artifactual and stratigraphical record does not supply. Not only have the numbers of prehistoric skeletal specimens increased through recent excavations, but many skeletal specimens and series collected in earlier times are being reinvestigated. Furthermore, the information derived from modern morphometric analyses of skeletal remains extends far beyond a preoccupation with racial identification and discernment of biological affinities. Reorientation of research designs means a closer association of anatomical and statistical analyses of skeletal materials to specific archaeological issues as well as the application of these data to the broader spectrum of world prehistory and human evolution. In his or her search for comparative skeletal data, the biological anthropologist is discovering the richness of research materials available in South Asia, a skeletal record that has a considerable, if discontinuous, antiquity of some 9 to 15 million years for hominoids.