What the Harappans ate

The Harappans built many settlements along the banks of rivers, large and small. That was a sensible choice, not just for easy water but also for farming, since rivers make the soil around them richer.

Archaeologists have found that the Harappans grew cereals such as barley, wheat, some millets and sometimes rice, as well as pulses (beans, peas and lentils, our dal) and many vegetables.

They were the first in Eurasia (all of Europe and Asia) to grow cotton, which they wove into cloth.

They made farming tools, including the plough, some kinds of which farmers still use today. A small clay model of a plough was found at Banawali in Haryana.

All this farming was run by hundreds of small villages. Then, as now, the cities could survive only if enough farm produce from the villages reached them every day. There is the 'productive agriculture' from the list of seven features, holding everything else up.

The Harappans also kept animals for meat and fished in rivers and the sea; we know this from the large numbers of animal and fish bones found in excavations.

And what was in their cooking pots? Scientific tests on clay pots have given answers, some expected (dairy products) and some surprising (traces of turmeric, ginger and banana). Clearly their food was very varied, and chemistry has read a menu nobody wrote down.