Faunal Diversity during the Harappan Period in Haryana: A Review

Several scholars have paid attention to the study of animals in Harappan culture since the first idea of animals at Mohenjo daro was given by Sewell and Guha in 1931. Also, a few reviews are available:Sahu (1988), Possehl (1999), Thomas and Joglekar (1994), Thomas (2002), Chattopadhyaya (2002), Meadow and Patel (2002), Joglekar (2006), and Joglekar and Goyal (in press). All these reviews have aptly recognised the importance of archaeo faunal studies in reconstructing human animal interactions on environment in the past. For a long period of time the archaeofaunal record from Harappan sites located in the plain of Haryana was scanty. However, in recent years several sites such as Farmana, Girawad, Mitathal, Bhirrana, Karsola, Masudpur, Burj, Bahola, Rakhigarhi, Rupnagar(Ropar) and Lohat were excavated. Moreover, some of the faunal material from all of these sites has been made available for faunal study. These studies have shown the nature of human animal interactions during the Harappan cultural context. This paper reviews faunal studies from all these sites and presents a summary of findings, particularly those related to faunal diversity.The Harappan people of Haryana Plain utilized domestic and wild mammals, as well as non mammalian resources such as the birds, reptiles, fish and molluscs. This paper focuses on examining overall faunal diversity noticed at the Harappan sites in Haryana.