Archaeological and archaeobotanical investigations in Tamsa region of Ganga Plain, Uttar Pradesh, India

Abstract

This study presents the archaeological and archaeobotanical findings based on data recorded during excavations at Khapura, a multicultural site in the Ambedkar Nagar district of Uttar Pradesh, India. The ceramic assemblage and other cultural materials, including structural remains, have revealed four distinct cultural periods, namely pre-Northern Black Polished Ware (NBPW), NBPW, Sunga-Kushana, and Gupta, dating back to 1100–200 bce. The carbonised plant remains recovered from the pre-NBPW and NBPW periods suggest a double-cropping pattern, represented by both winter and summer season crops. The identified field crops are represented by grains and seeds such as Hordeum vulgare (barley), Triticum aestivum (wheat), Oryza sativa (rice), Setaria italica (foxtail millet), Vigna sp. (green/black gram), Macrotyloma uniflorum (horse gram), Luffa sp. (sponge gourd), Linum usitatissimum (linseed). Few weeds and wild taxa, like Ziziphus sp. (jujube), Vicia sp. (common vetch), Chenopodium sp. (goosefoot), Polygonum sp. (smart weed/knot weed), were also identified in the recovered plant assemblage. These plant remains have been discussed and compared with the archaeobotanical data from other neighbouring sites in the region. © The Authors 2025. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).