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Home/Anthropology/Mains PYQ/2016/Paper II/Prehistoric Archaeology
UPSC MainsAnthropology Optional Paper II 2016 20 Marks Model Answer Available

Skeletal Remains from the Chalcolithic Culture of Undivided Punjab — 2016 Paper II

Question · 2016 · Paper II · 20 Marks

Give a detailed appraisal of skeletal remains from Chalcolithic culture of undivided Punjab.

Model Answer

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Approach

Demand of Question: Identify the principal skeletal series from the greater undivided Punjab Harappan-Chalcolithic context, describe what they reveal about demography, morphology, health, mobility and mortuary practice, and critically reject outdated racial over-reading of small skeletal samples.

Structuring the Response: Clarify cultural-geographic context -> Harappa R-37/Cemetery H and Rupar evidence -> biological profile and mortuary features -> palaeopathology and mobility -> history of racial interpretations -> modern bioarchaeological appraisal.

Key Dimensions to Cover: Harappa R-37 and Cemetery H; Anthropological Survey of India 1962 skeletal memoir; Rupar/Ropar burials, P.C. Dutta 1987; morphology and dental evidence; trauma/infection; isotopic mobility; Robbins Schug; Hemphill; limitations of racial typology.

Model Answer

Introduction

For ‘undivided Punjab’, the most important Chalcolithic-protohistoric skeletal record is the Harappan series from Harappa, now in Pakistan, supplemented on the Indian side by burials from Rupar and related north-western sites. These remains are valuable not as ‘racial fossils’ but as bioarchaeological evidence of lived urban and post-urban populations.

Body

Harappa skeletal series: The principal reference collection comes from Cemetery R-37, used during the Mature Harappan phase, together with the later Cemetery H and Area G assemblages. The Anthropological Survey of India’s memoir Human Skeletal Remains from Harappa (1962) documented crania, dentition and post-cranial remains. R-37 burials were generally extended inhumations with pottery and personal ornaments; Cemetery H shows changing mortuary practice, including later urn burials.

Rupar and the eastern Punjab zone: At Rupar (Rupnagar), Harappan and later levels yielded human burials studied by P.C. Dutta in Ancient Human Remains from Rupar (1987). Although the sample is smaller and preservation uneven, it permits comparison with Harappa and demonstrates biological continuity and variation within the wider Punjab-Haryana cultural zone rather than a single homogeneous population.

Biological and health evidence: Cranial and dental studies reveal ordinary intra-population variation, while teeth record caries, wear and developmental stress. More recent palaeopathological re-analysis of Harappa has identified infection, skeletal stress and trauma. Robbins Schug and colleagues showed that cranial injuries and disease were socially patterned, challenging older portrayals of Harappan urbanism as uniformly peaceful and healthy.

Mobility and population interaction: Morphometric and, more recently, isotopic studies indicate both local and non-local individuals at Harappa. This is consistent with an urban system sustained by trade, craft specialization and migration. Such evidence is stronger for reconstructing mobility than the older effort to assign skulls to ‘Mediterranean’, ‘Proto-Australoid’ or other fixed races.

Critical appraisal: Skeletal samples are selective, preservation is unequal, sex-age estimation carries uncertainty and burial populations do not represent the whole living society. Older racial classifications relied on small cranial samples and typological assumptions now rejected by population genetics. Modern bioarchaeology instead integrates demography, pathology, trauma, diet, mobility and mortuary context.

Conclusion

The skeletal record of undivided Punjab therefore reveals biologically diverse, mobile and socially differentiated Harappan populations across urban and post-urban phases. Its greatest value lies in reconstructing health, mortality, life histories, mobility, population interaction, cultural change and changing social organization—not in validating obsolete racial typologies.

2026 Write a detailed note on the characteristic features, chronology, geographical distribution, tool types and lifeways of Magdalenian cultural tradition of Europe. 2026 What are the evidences available regarding crops and domesticated animals of Indus Valley Civilization? What are the views of the scholars regarding Indus script? 2026 Discuss with examples, how general comparative analogy has been used in ethnoarchaeological studies in India. 2026 Make a critical appraisal of the mesolithic culture of Ganga basin with reference to artifacts, faunal and human skeletal remains excavated from different sites.

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