ABSTRACT
Most summaries of the prehistoric evidence for subsistence from India and Pakistan emphasize the introduction of crops from South-west Asia (wheat, barley, peas, lentils and flax) or from Asia and Africa (rice and the millets) (Meadow 1996; Glover and Higham 1996). This initial emphasis on introduction has been in many ways warranted, as new crops have transformed subsistence systems in the subcontinent over the last 5,000 years. However, much less effort has been expended on attempting to understand the interaction of introduced crops and indigenous ones. In looking at local food plants there are two main sources of evidence: the distribution of such plants in the present and their use in agricultural or hunter-gatherer systems in the present and recent past. This chapter concentrates on the former set of evidence, making only brief comments on how such plants are presently used and how far these uses provide some window on the longer-term past. It should be stressed at the outset that what follows does not represent a full survey of the evidence, as this is too massive a task for such a large region for which the evidence is patchy at best. Rather, I indicate the potential of studies of present-day food plants and provide some sketch as to how these might be combined with the evidence from prehistory.
