Beyond the Hinterlands: Preliminary Results from the TwoRains Survey in Northwest India 2018

This paper presents the preliminary results of the 2018 season of the TwoRains archaeological survey in Northwest India. Between January and March, the team investigated the location of archaeological sites across approximately 3400 km2 of areas in the Sirsa, Fatehabad and Hisar districts of Haryana. A small area in the Mansa District of Punjab was also re-visited. The survey utilised the same methodology as was employed during the 2017 season, adopting a digital workflow that facilitated the extensive, systematic and comprehensive analysis of portions of Northwest India’s archaeological landscape. The data collected consisted of preliminary site locations, which were collected using tablet-based AGPS, and periodisation for each location, which was ascertained by undertaking low intensity systematic surface collections. The aim of the survey was to revisit previously identified sites and improve coverage in critical parts of Northwest India’s landscape, addressing challenges that had been identified in previous seasons by the Land, Water and Settlement project, and to create a dataset that would facilitate the integrated analysis of archaeological landscapes across an extensive area that includes many parts of the Indus Civilisation’s settlement distributions. The survey successfully completed this goal, collecting preliminary information from 148 sites that can offer insights into settlement distributions from the earliest period of Northwest India’s occupation around 3300 BCE up to the present.This research was carried out as part of the TwoRains project which is funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no 648609)