This paper presents novel insights into the archaeology of food in ancient South Asia by using lipid residue analysis to investigate what kinds of foodstuffs were used in ceramic vessels by populations of the Indus Civilisation in northwest India. It examines how vessels were used in urban and rural Indus settlements during the Mature Harappan period (c.2600/2500–1900 BC), the relationship between vessels and the products within them, and identifies whether changes in vessel use occurred from the Mature Harappan to Late Harappan periods, particularly during climatic instability after 4.2 ka BP (c.2100 BC). Despite low lipid concentrations, which highlight challenges with conducting residue analysis in arid, seasonally-wet and alkaline environments, 71% of the vessels yielded appreciable quantities of lipid. Lipid profiles revealed the use of animal fats in vessels, and contradictory to faunal evidence, a dominance of non-ruminant fats, with limited evidence of dairy processing. The absence of local modern reference fats makes this dataset challenging to interpret, and it is possible that plant products or mixtures of plant and animal products have led to ambiguous fatty acid-specific isotopic values. At the same time, it appears that urban and rural populations processed similar types of products in vessels, with limited evidence for change in vessel use from the urban to the post-urban period. This study is a systematic investigation into pot lipid residues from multiple sites, demonstrating the potential of the method for examining ancient Indus foodways and the need for the development of further research in ancient organic residues in South Asia.

本文通过使用脂质残留物分析来研究印度西北印度洋文明人群在陶瓷容器中使用了哪种食品，从而对古代南亚的食品考古学提出了新的见解。它研究如何船只在城市和农村居民点梧桐在成熟哈拉帕期间使用（ç 0.2600 /二五〇 〇年至1900年BC），在船舶使用的变化无论是从成熟哈拉帕发生血管并在他们的产品，并确定之间的关系至哈拉潘晚期，特别是在4.2 ka BP（c.2100 BC）。尽管脂质浓度低，这突出了在干旱，季节性湿润和碱性环境下进行残留分析的挑战，但仍有71％的容器产生了大量的脂质。脂质谱显示，在血管中使用了动物脂肪，这与动物学证据（非反刍动物脂肪占主导地位）相矛盾，而乳制品加工的证据却很少。缺乏当地现代参考脂肪使该数据集难以解释，并且植物产品或动植物混合物可能导致特定脂肪酸的歧义同位素值。同时，似乎城市和农村人口在船只中加工了相似类型的产品，而从城市到城市后时期的船只使用变化的证据有限。