Excavating the Deep History of Degradation: Animal Husbandry and the Environmental Impacts of Livestock Grazing in Pre and Early Historic South India

This research is an archaeological study that uses a multi-method approach (faunal analysis and dental microwear analysis) and a combination of theoretical frameworks to analyze changes in subsistence organization, as well as past perceptions of human-animal relationships and human-environmental interactions. This approach was developed to build a long-term, deep historical perspective of animal husbandry and the environmental impacts of livestock grazing in South India. Faunal and dental microwear data sets were collected from Kadebakele, the research site of the Early Historic Landscapes of the Tungabhadra Corridor Project. Faunal data (used to reconstruct subsistence practices) and dental microwear data (used to determine if overgrazing occurred) were compared across three settlement phases dating to what is conventionally known as the South India Neolithic (3000BCE-1200BCE), Iron Age (1200BCE-300BCE), and Early Historic (300BCE-500CE) periods. The results of faunal and dental microwear analysis show a complex combination of social, economic, and ideological factors related to animal and land use during the Iron Age ultimately had environmental consequences, which set the stage for changes in subsistence organization by the Early Historic period. This is the first integrated faunal and dental microwear study to be completed in the region, the results of which build upon, and contribute to, the archaeology of human-environmental interactions and discourse on contemporary conservation policy in South Asia.