ABSTRACT
Caste is one of the most powerful dynamics ordering social space within settlements in South Asia. It is a dynamic which controls marriage partners, ritual purity, diet, occupation, and the location of habitation. Present in rural and urban settings, it is a dynamic which is found in Hindu, Buddhist, and Islamic communities throughout the subcontinent, from Sri Lanka to Nepal, and from Bangladesh to Pakistan. A recognizable modern phenomenon, attempts have been made to demonstrate that it forms a very real and pervasive link with the oral and written histories of South Asia. Such a powerful dynamic has not been ignored by archaeologists and historians; a number of such scholars have attempted to trace and identify it in architectural and artefactual distributions, ranging in date from the Early Historic to the Prehistoric (Auboyer 1965; Jarrige and Santoni 1979; Ratnagar 1991). This chapter will evaluate the success of these attempts, frame a methodology for testing two archaeological indicators – occupation and diet – and their application to archaeological evidence, and examine the archaeological visibility of caste.
