| Abstract: |
The early farming communities which flourished in western India in the third-second millennia BC include the Ahar culture of Rajasthan, the Prabhas culture of Gujarat and the Savalda, Malwa and Jorwe cultures of Maharashtra. Although almost all excavated sites have yielded biological material crucial for understanding the environment and subsistence systems, very few bone assemblages have been analysed scientifically. However, the excavations at Inamgaon, Walki and Kaothe in Maharashtra, Prabhas Patan in Gujarat and the recent excavation at Balathal in Rajasthan have provided a fairly good picture of the man-animal relationships of this period. The early farming communities of western India subsisted on stock-raising, farming and hunting-fishing. They reared cattle, sheep, goat, buffalo and pig, and also hunted a variety of terrestrial, avian and aquatic animals for food. Nevertheless, a distinction has been noticed in the exploration of certain habitat-specific wild animals due to geographical variations.
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