The people of the Indus civilization survived on a diet high in pork, beef and BUFFALO 4,500 years ago

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The people of the Indus Valley civilization who lived in what is now northwest India 4,000 years ago had a diet high in meat, new research shows.

Analysis of pottery from the period reveals a preponderance of products of animal origin, including pork, bovine, buffalo and goat meat, as well as dairy products.

Scientists claim that people in rural and urban areas had similar diets, which allowed them to endure episodes of severe aridity caused by climate change.

Analysis of pottery from the Indus Civilization era (pictured) reveals a preponderance of animal products, including pork, cattle, buffalo and goat meat as well as dairy products .

Lipids have been discovered in ancient jars (pictured) and their concentration has long been used to paint a picture of the diet of ancient civilizations

Molecules called lipids, which make up fats and oils, are tough and traces can survive for millennia, while other nutrients, such as protein, degrade beyond detection.

Lipids have been discovered in the jars and their concentration has long been used to paint a picture of the diet of ancient civilizations.

Study author Dr Akshyeta Suryanarayan, a former PhD student at Cambridge University, said: “ The study of lipid residues involves the extraction and identification of the fats and oils that have been absorbed in old ceramic vessels when used in the past.

“Lipids are relatively less prone to degradation and have been found in pottery from archaeological contexts around the world.

“However, they saw very limited research on ancient ceramics from South Asia.

This study is the first to investigate the lipid residues absorbed in pottery from several sites in the Indus, including the Indus [capital] Rakhigarhi city, say researchers

All modern Indians are from the Indus civilization

The largest study ever of ancient human remains found that most of India’s inhabitants today descend from the once vast Indus Valley civilization.

DNA was analyzed, for the first time, from a person who lived in this society and found that modern Indians probably all came from this singular culture.

The woman, buried in Rakhigarhi, the capital of ancient culture, painted a rich tapestry of Indian origins.

His DNA has also revealed, aided by DNA from 524 other ancient individuals never before studied, new secrets about the origins of language and agriculture in the region.

He agreed with previous studies which indicated that Indo-European languages - such as Hindi, Bengali, Persian, Russian and English – likely flooded South and Central Asia via migrants. of the Eurasian steppe.

Not, as some experts have claimed, farmers who migrate out of present-day Turkey.

The other advance comes from the long-standing debate about the origin of agriculture in India.

He discovered that it was not prompted by a large-scale movement of people from the Fertile Crescent, where agriculture originated.

Instead, agriculture began in South Asia with local hunter-gatherers embracing the practice.

“This study is the first to study the lipid residues absorbed in pottery from several sites in the Indus.

The research, published today in the Journal of Archaeological Science, looked at ancient ceramic vessels from rural and urban settlements of the Indus Civilization in northwest India, the Current states of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.

The researchers say their study made it possible to “make comparisons between institutions and over time.”

Indus society spanned from 5,300 to 3,300 years ago, when civilization entered a period of decline and died out soon after.

What caused the demise of this once great civilization is a long-standing mystery.

A recent study claims that the Indus Valley civilization has been wiped out by climate change.

He claims that the monsoons increased about 5,250 years ago when the planet cooled, which allowed the Indus civilization to emerge and thrive as storms provided water to the semi-arid region via the Ghaggar – Hakra river system.

But a climate change 2000 years later saw the number of monsoons drop, reducing the amount of water on which Indus settlements along the river system and depended.

When it dried up, society collapsed into oblivion.

The society existed at the same time as ancient Egypt, but much less is known about the Indus people due to the few surviving artifacts.

By identifying the presence of lipids and analyzing them to determine their origin, researchers have better understood the typical Indus diets.

Dr Suryanarayan says the study faces difficulties in interpreting the results because it generated unexpected results.

“For example, we found a predominance of non-ruminant animal fat, although animal remains like pigs are not found in large quantities in the Indus colonies.

“It is possible that plant products or mixtures of plant and animal products were also used in vessels, creating ambiguous results.”

Additionally, despite the high percentages of domestic ruminant remains found at these sites, there is very limited direct evidence for the use of dairy products in containers, including in perforated containers that have previously been suggested to be related to dairy processing. ‘

WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT INDUS VALLEY CIVILIZATION?

The Indus Civilization, also known as the Harappan Civilization, was an advanced Bronze Age society.

It developed mainly in the northwestern regions of South Asia, 5,300 to 3,300 years ago.

The cities of the Indus were at their richest between 2600 and 1900 BC.

Along with ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, it was one of the first three Old World civilizations.

The Indus occupied the Indus Valley region of modern Pakistan and India

The Empire stretched from the Arabian Sea to the Ganges, over what is now Pakistan, India and Afghanistan.

At its peak, civilization may have had a population of over 5 million, or 10% of the world’s population.

Among their settlements, the researchers discovered the world’s first known toilets, as well as intricate stone weights, pierced gemstone necklaces, and a beautifully carved seal stone.

An unusual and complex script is etched into these artifacts, which researchers are quick to decipher.

Why civilization died out around 3,000 years ago remains a mystery, but experts have suggested that war, famine or even climate change could be responsible.

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