Social Responses to Environmental Variation and the Politics of Land Use on the Medieval Deccan

Andrew M. Bauer1*, Yahui He1, Matthew Jones Padgett1, Pankaj Goyal2, India Peter Johansen3, and Hemanth Kadambi4

The Deccan Plateau of medieval India experienced multiple sustained droughts caused by disruptions to the southwestern monsoon between the 13th and 15th centuries CE. This paper reports on the results of multiple lines of archaeological and environmental evidence—inclusive of soil micromorphology, landscape remote sensing, faunal analysis, and both macrobotantical and microbotanical remains—from the site of Maski (Raichur District, Karnataka) as part of the Maski Archaeological Research Project’s (MARP) efforts to understand how Medieval Period communities on the Deccan differentially responded to such precipitation stress. More specifically, we report the results of excavations from two different occupational areas where we have documented distinct building, consumption, and land use practices that speak to both differential vulnerabilities and resiliencies to the vicissitudes of the monsoon during this period. As such, the paper demonstrates how environmental archaeology might also more productively contribute to understanding social and political histories, both on the Deccan and elsewhere in the Indo-Pacific region.