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- Title
Early water management in South Asia: Geochronology and micromorphology of rock pools and small‐scale water catchment features in Karnataka, India.
- Authors
Gaggioli, Amanda M.; Bauer, Andrew M.; Morrison, Kathleen D.; Lycett, Mark T.
- Abstract
Archaeologists and historians of South Asia have long emphasized the significance of large‐scale irrigation reservoirs to historical developments and precolonial land use. However, comparatively little attention has been directed at an extensive corpus of small‐scale water‐retention features, such as culturally modified weathering pans and rock pools. In this contribution, we provide the first geoarchaeological evidence from such features in southern India. Geochronological assessments, depositional models, and sediment and micromorphological analyses from two sites in northern Karnataka indicate that inhabitants used and modified these features in at least the first millennium BCE. Throughout later historical periods, even after the development of large‐scale, primarily elite‐sponsored, irrigation reservoirs, inhabitants continued to rely on small, dispersed water‐retention features. Our findings have implications for current debates concerning the introduction of water‐management practices in southern India, which appear to begin in association with dispersed land‐use practices rather than intensive irrigated agriculture, and also corroborate the importance of decentralized water management to historical processes more globally.
- Subjects
SOUTH Asia; KARNATAKA (India); INDIA; WATER management; WATERSHEDS; IRRIGATION farming; GEOLOGICAL time scales; SEDIMENT analysis; IRRIGATION management; ARCHAEOLOGICAL geology
- Publication
Geoarchaeology, 2021, Vol 36, Issue 5, p780
- ISSN
0883-6353
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1002/gea.21865