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11 - Mehrgarh, Pakistan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2015

By
Cameron A. Petrie
Edited by
Graeme Barker  and
Candice Goucher
Graeme Barker
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Candice Goucher
Affiliation:
Washington State University
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Summary

Mehrgarh is the best-known early village site in South Asia, and presents the earliest evidence for sedentary occupation, agriculture and pastoralism thus far discovered. Sedentary occupation was displaced episodically, such that the use of individual areas appears to have been largely sequential. Mehrgarh period I appears to have been at least partly contemporaneous with the earliest aceramic levels at the site of Kili Gul Muhammad, at the other end of the Bolan Pass. Mehrgarh is located well outside the distribution of the wild progenitors of both domesticated einkorn and emmer wheat, which are limited to the Near Eastern arc or the Fertile Crescent. New aceramic sites have, however, now been found in southwest and southeast Iran, which have added significantly to our understanding of the distribution of aceramic Neolithic settlements. Excavations in the uppermost levels at MR 4 and MR 2 revealed evidence for increasing sophistication of the ceramic decoration repertoire during Mehrgarh period III.

Keywords

archaeogeneticsancient DNAphylogeography
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge World History , pp. 289 - 309
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2015

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References

Further reading

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